Does dieting affect your immune system ?

duniaamen

I'm not sure if there's a connection. Are you more prone to illness when losing weight?

Nony_Mouse

If you're doing it sensibly (appropriate deficit and ensuring you get a wide range of nutrients) then I doubt it.

Alatariel75

^^ This. If your diet is resulting in you lacking nutrients, maybe. But if you're losing weight in a healthy and nutritionally sound manner, I would imagine it could have the effect of actually improving your immune response.

spring913

My doctor told me to expect to get more colds this winter than I'm used to because I'm actively loosing weight. I didn't believe her. She was right. I normally don't get sick, maybe once every other year. I've had 4 colds already this winter. My diet is balanced. It could be a coincidence, it might not be. But that's my experience thus far.

MonkeyMel21

Everytime I get serious about eating at a deficit (once or twice a year, just to lose the 8 lbs I gain the rest of the year) I always get a cold within the first three weeks. Always. But then I get over it.

ninerbuff

Maybe. Some people meet their micronutrients values, but when you add strenuous exercise those values may need to be increased. Strenuous exercise does actually lower your immunity temporarily.

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aelunyu

I like really rarely get sick, but when I do, it's almost always in a deficit or during periods of high stress from travel/work when diet goes out the window and I'm eating like airport starbucks muffins.

zdyb23456

I agree that exercising in addition dieting may lower your immune response. Whenever I feel tired and run down from trying to do too much I know I'm asking to get sick!

EricaCraigie

I would assume so.

ManiacalLaugh

Another point to consider is if you're going to a gym. Gyms are germ-fests. The one at my office is the worst. People come in from doing their jobs in public transit (a very germy industry), fail to wash their hands, fail to wipe off the equipment, sweat all over the place, put their mouths on the water fountain (yes I'm talking about adults, here)... two weeks later, I have a cold.

CSARdiver

ManiacalLaugh wrote: »

Another point to consider is if you're going to a gym. Gyms are germ-fests. The one at my office is the worst. People come in from doing their jobs in public transit (a very germy industry), fail to wash their hands, fail to wipe off the equipment, sweat all over the place, put their mouths on the water fountain (yes I'm talking about adults, here)... two weeks later, I have a cold.

The good news is that since microorganisms are in constant competition with one another the pathogenic strains are culled out by these very same germ fests.

goldthistime

"Scientists at Stanford University yesterday published a more realistic approach to calorie restriction in the journal PLoS Biology. Associate professor of microbiology and immunology David Schneider and graduate student Janelle Ayres worked with fruit flies, this time investigating the effects of bacterial infections on organisms with a restricted diet.

They found that eating less can either increase or shorten the lives of infected flies, depending on the disease. Flies given half their normal diet and exposed to a form of the food-poisoning bug salmonella lived almost twice as long as their full-fat brethren, who only lasted for eight days after infection. But when infected with listeria, another food-poisoning bug, the dieting flies died after just four days, compared to the six or seven managed by flies eating normally."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jul/14/ageing-calorie-restriction-diet

rileysowner

goldthistime wrote: »

"Scientists at Stanford University yesterday published a more realistic approach to calorie restriction in the journal PLoS Biology. Associate professor of microbiology and immunology David Schneider and graduate student Janelle Ayres worked with fruit flies, this time investigating the effects of bacterial infections on organisms with a restricted diet.

They found that eating less can either increase or shorten the lives of infected flies, depending on the disease. Flies given half their normal diet and exposed to a form of the food-poisoning bug salmonella lived almost twice as long as their full-fat brethren, who only lasted for eight days after infection. But when infected with listeria, another food-poisoning bug, the dieting flies died after just four days, compared to the six or seven managed by flies eating normally."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jul/14/ageing-calorie-restriction-diet

It really sucks being a fruit fly.

FreyasRebirth

There was an interesting thing too, based on people getting chemotherapy. Those who fast for 48 hours beforehand recovered quicker because the body was cannibalizing "old" immune cells during the fast and rebounded by making new ones when the fast was broken.

https://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell-regeneration-of-damaged-old-immune-system/

GemstoneofHeart

spring913 wrote: »

My doctor told me to expect to get more colds this winter than I'm used to because I'm actively loosing weight. I didn't believe her. She was right. I normally don't get sick, maybe once every other year. I've had 4 colds already this winter. My diet is balanced. It could be a coincidence, it might not be. But that's my experience thus far.

Agree. Been sick twice this year already. Started losing weight in December.