The Relation between Nutritional Deprivation and Immunity

Classically, an intimate association has been recognized between nutritional deprivation and infection (1,2). The studies to be summarized in this brief presentation represent extensive investigations that have been carried out over the past 4 years at the University of Minnesota as we have begun to analyse under carefully controlled conditions in the laboratory, the relation of protein, caloric and specific amino acid deprivation and immune responses (3–6). For us these investigations, however, had their point of departure in clinical and field observations which suggested that different forms and different degrees of nutritional deprivation might have a profound influence on the development and expression of immunity. In 1968 one of us (R.A.G.) visited a former student and collegue Galal Aref who was working with refugie children in Egypt. Aref had found that when profound nutritional deprivation began in the neonatal period and was extreme it led to advanced protein deficiency and even Kwashiorkor already by 6 or 7 months of age.