Hygiena 2022, 67(2):56-60 | DOI: 10.21101/hygiena.a1804

Nutrition as primary prevention of communicable diseases?

Petr Šíma¹, Vladimír Bencko², Igo Kajaba³

¹ Akademie věd ČR, Mikrobiologický ústav, Laboratoř imunoterapie, Praha, Česká republika

² Univerzita Karlova, 1. lékařská fakulta, Ústav hygieny a epidemiologie a Všeobecná fakultní nemocnice, Praha, Česká republika

³ CarnoMed, s. r. o., medicínske centrum, Bratislava, Slovenská republika

The article is a reminder that in addition to classic anti-epidemic measures there is a possibility of prevention of communicable (infectious) diseases (but also of non-communicable chronic diseases) that are specifically targetted by nutrition programs. Since ancient times, when the causes and nature of diseases were unknown (so even precisely targetted drugs, let alone antibiotics, were unavailable), the only way to prevent and treat diseases was to change nutrition. Although nutritional health promotion has proven itself many times over it has, as typical in the history of medicine, sometimes been forgotten. Hippocrates (460-377 BC) was aware of the importance of nutrition for health when he wrote "If you know nothing about a person's diet, how can you understand his illness?" The authors have tried to highlight the importance of nutrition which always contains antigens that directly induce immunological memory in our largest organ of immunity, the intestinal lymphoid tissue (GALT), both specific (adaptive) immunity and, as has recently been shown, non-specific (natural) immunity. In essence, food intake is a process of ongoing vaccination along with its nutritional value.

Keywords: infectious diseases, disease prevention, nutrition, Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue (GALT)

Received: January 2022; Accepted: April 3, 2022; Published: June 27, 2022  Show citation