The effects on complement component 3 of dietary variation of protein, fat and vitamin E during growth of young mice

Some studies have shown that nutrition lowers overall immunity to disease. To further elucidate the role of nutrition on immunity, we have investigated the effect on serum Complement C3 by three nutrients, protein, lipid and vitamin E, in BALB/c mice for up to 24 weeks. The group with high dietary vitamin E had slightly higher C3 for the first four months but by the 22nd week was lower than control. The groups receiving high or low protein had, respectively, high or low C3. Injection of thymosin fraction 5 increased the C3, suppressed by the low protein diet. The group on the high lipid diet had high C3 until the 14th week whereupon it declined to control level by the 22nd week. The low lipid diet resulted in low C3 during the early weeks but increased to control level by the 22nd week. We conclude that diet is important to complement mediated immunity of young mice.