About this Research Topic

Background

High levels of inflammation may exert significant metabolic demands, deplete essential nutrient stores, and have immunosuppressive effects. While adequate nutrition is recognized as central to immune system homeostasis, our understanding of how supra-dietary doses of specific immunonutrients guide immune cells towards a more tolerogenic state is still evolving. Immunonutrition, a branch of precision nutrition, can be applied in any situation where nutritional support is used to modulate pro- or anti-inflammatory immune responses. Given the growing interest in this field within modern medicine, the list of immune-modulating dietary substrates has expanded in recent years beyond amino acids, nucleotides, vitamins, and fatty acids to include a wide range of naturally occurring bioactives such as polyphenols, glucans, diverse biotics (pre-, pro-, sym-, postbiotics), among others. Applications are vast, ranging from immune system development in the embryonic and the first years of life until adulthood, to the modulation of immunosenescence and inflamm-aging processes that stand at the origin of a wide range of age-related diseases including, but not limited to cancer, autoimmune, metabolic and neurodegenerative disorders.

Health benefits can be derived from immunonutrients supplementation, administered either individually or in combination, often in the form of functional foods and nutraceuticals. Despite significant multi-omics-driven advances in understanding how immunonutrients and their holobiont-derived metabolites modulate the immune system, there is an urgent need to expand our knowledge of their mechanisms and functionality. This can be achieved through in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo studies, highlighting the multi-level coordinated interactions between the immune system and immunonutrient supplementation. Moreover, it is crucial to deepen our understanding of immunological biomarkers, used either alone or in combination, that accurately reflects nutritional status and the cause-effect relationships between nutrition and the immune system. This knowledge is essential not only to demonstrate disease-specific benefits but also to anticipate potential side effects and drug-immunonutrient interactions, thereby advancing the field of precision nutrition.

This Research Topic welcomes contributions that present the latest and most relevant scientific advancements aimed at bringing fundamental research to clinical practice and providing evidence-based precision immunonutrition to patients. We invite submissions in the form of Original Research, Systematic or Narrative Reviews, Case Reports, Clinical Trials, and others that focus on, but are not limited to, the following issues:

• Effects of immunonutrients, bioactive compounds, and both conventional and functional ingredients and foods on the immune system, including their impact on mucosal barrier structures, cellular defense processes, and inflammation. Research on the regulation of host-microbiome and host-pathogen crosstalks and the underlying immunomodulatory pathways is also encouraged, from nutrient-signaling networks to immunometabolic and epigenetic reprogramming.
• Multi-omic approaches (e.g. genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, microbiomics) to study nutritional shifts that hold suppressive, regulatory, or stimulatory effects on the immune system.
• Interactions between nutrition and the immune system, considering unique features from genetic or lifestyle factors, at all stages of the life cycle;
• Evaluation of nutritional and immunological status through reliable biomarkers.
• Immunonutrition and disease-specific outcomes, potential drug-food interactions, food matrix effects, efficacy and/or effectiveness studies.
• Immunomodulatory feed components and animal nutrition.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Immunonutrients, Bioactive Compounds, Biotics, Multiomics, Immunomodulation, Microbiota–Immune System Crosstalk, Functional Foods, Nutraceuticals, Drug-Nutrients Interactions, Safety, Efficacy, Effectiveness, Precision Nutrition

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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