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Healthy lifestyles are associated with higher lymphokine-activated killer cell activity
C Inoue1, T Takeshita, H Kondo
1Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Osaka University School of Medicine, Japan.
Background:
To investigate the association between lifestyle factors and immune responses to tumors, we determined lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cell activity and proportions of lymphocyte subsets in 54 healthy males.
Methods:
LAK cell activity was determined by 51Cr release assay. The proportions of natural killer cells (CD3-16+56-, CD3-16-56+ or CD3-16+56+ cells), helper/ inducer T cells (CD4+8-), and cytotoxic/suppressor T cells (CD4-8+) in lymphocytes were also determined by flow cytometry. Subjects were classified into two groups, good or poor overall lifestyle, according to their answers on a questionnaire regarding eight health practices (cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, physical exercise, mental stress, sleeping pattern, nutritional balance, eating breakfast, working pattern).
Results:
Subjects with good health practices regarding smoking showed significantly higher LAK cell activity. They also showed a significantly higher proportion of natural killer cells and a lower proportion of helper/inducer T cells. LAK cells activity was significantly higher in subjects with a good overall lifestyle than in those with a poor overall lifestyle after controlling for the effects of smoking. There were no significant differences in the proportions of lymphocyte subsets between the two lifestyle groups.
Conclusions:
Lifestyle factors are associated with LAK cell activity and the proportion of lymphocyte subsets.