Low-grade chronic inflammation perpetuated by modern diet as a promoter of obesity and osteoporosis.

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Some of the universal characteristics of pre-agricultural hominin diets are strikingly different from the modern human diet. Hominin dietary choices were limited to wild plant and wild animal foods, while the modern diet includes more than 70 % of energy consumed from refined sugars, refined vegetable oils, and highly processed cereals and dairy products. The modern diet, with higher intake of fat has also resulted in a higher ratio of omega-6 (n-6) to omega-3 (n-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), contributing to low-grade chronic inflammation (LGCI) and thus promoting the development of many chronic diseases, including obesity and osteoporosis. In this review, we describe the changes in modern diet, focusing on the kind and amount of consumed fat; explain the shortcomings of the modern diet with regard to inflammatory processes; and delineate the reciprocity between adiposity and inflammatory processes, with inflammation being a common link between obesity and osteoporosis. We present the evidence that overconsumption of n-6 PUFA coupled with under-consumption of n-3 PUFA results in LGCI and, along with the increased presence of reactive oxygen species, leads to a shift in mesenchymal stem cells (precursors for both osteoblasts and adipocytes) lineage commitment toward increased adipogenesis and suppressed osteoblastogenesis. In turn, high n-6 to n-3 PUFA ratios in the mod

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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