The team manipulated the diet fed to lab mice for very short periods of time and evaluated the level of infection caused by the malaria parasite. Researchers from Instituto de…

The team manipulated the diet fed to lab mice for very short periods of time and evaluated the level of infection caused by the malaria parasite.

Researchers from Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM) Lisboa have found that the host’s susceptibility to develop malaria depends on his or her metabolic state, which can be easily manipulated through external stimuli such as dietary patterns.

The team manipulated the diet fed to lab mice for very short periods of time and evaluated the level of infection caused by the malaria parasite. The results show that an increase in the levels of pro-oxidants caused by dietary shifts leads to a 90 per cent reduction in parasite load during the hepatic phase of the infection and consequently lowers the severity of the disease.

The mechanism used by the host to eliminate the malaria parasite, now revealed in this study, may contribute to explain how certain genetic alterations associate to high levels of oxidative stress, such as sickle-cell anemia or beta thalassemia, have been selected in the population due to their protective effect against malaria.