Acute changes in serum inflammatory signatures after consumption of ready-to-drink immuno-nutrition: A case report

Background: Immuno-nutrition administers specific nutrients to improve host defences, in particular supporting the immune system. Given the high invasiveness of some spine operations, strengthening the immune response could effectively balance the surgical stress and boost resilience. However, it is not clear what are the early molecular signatures after the consumption of immuno-modulatory nutrients. Materials and methods: In the context of nutritional prehabilitation, we present the case of a lady with scoliosis scheduled for surgery who was administered immuno-nutrition preoperatively and tested for acute changes in 200 biomolecules after two and four hours. Results: After four hours, we mainly observed 30-fold increase in IL-10, 10-fold increase in IL-18 inhibitory protein, 6-fold increase in IL-1 inhibitory receptor, 12-fold decrease in IL-2 receptor, and 51-fold decrease in IL-23. Gene ontology annotations showed the involvement of genes regulating cytokine activity, response to external organisms, humoral and adaptive response, and lymphocyte immunity. Conclusion: Overall, the trends over the first four hours showed a positive shift of the cytokine balance in favour of anti-inflammatory mediators while keeping active the cell-mediated immunity. The use of immuno-nutrition for prehabilitation patients could prove useful to patients but benefits from chronic consumption and surgical outcomes remain to be determined.