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Effect of Diet on Lung Structure, Connective Tissue Metabolism and Gene Expression¹

Department of Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854

Nutritional impairment can adversely affect the respiratory system. The structure of the lung is altered by severe calorie-protein restriction in rodents producing an emphysema-like lesion after several weeks of severe caloric restriction. Biochemical and morphological evidence suggests destruction of collagen and elastin in nutritional emphysema. Impaired lung growth may explain the biochemical changes in growing animals. Although the molecular basis of nutritional emphysema is not known, altered gene expression by nutrients affects several metabolic pathways, and examples of the effects of nutrients on gene expression are given. Nutritional emphysema in animals may be relevant to humans because malnutrition may accelerate the progression of the disease in patients with advanced emphysema.

KEY WORDS: • starvation • emphysema • lung function • connective tissue • malnutrition

¹ Presented as part of the symposium "Role of Nutrition in Lung Development and Function" given at the Experimental Biology '94 meeting, Anaheim, CA, on April 25, 1994. This symposium was sponsored by the American Institute of Nutrition. Guest editor for this symposium was John S. Torday, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD.

² To whom correspondence should be addressed: Department of Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Room C-B04, 675 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854-5635.

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