ENHANCING EFFECTS OF FOOD COMPONENTS ON THE PRODUCTION OF INTERFERON-BETA FROM ANIMAL-CELLS SUPPRESSED BY STRESS HORMONES

In today's 'modern' society, no one can escape from the stresses of da ily life. Stress stimulates the secretion of stress hormones (e.g. cor tisol or noradrenaline) which generally suppress the immune response s ystem, thus rendering the body vulnerable to infectious diseases and c ancer. Therefore finding anti-stress food components, which diminish a nd/or inhibit the stress related suppression of the immune response sy stem would be helpful in maintaining and promoting the health of the h uman population. Here we established a screening system for anti-stres s substances using the cultured human cell line MG-63. The production of interferon-beta (IFN-beta) by MG-63 cells super-induced by Poly (I) : Poly (C) was shown to decrease in a dose dependent manner upon the a ddition of 0.01-10 mu g/ml of cortisol or noradrenaline (NA). 1,2-Diac ylglycerol (DG) was demonstrated to abrogate this suppression. Lipid f rom the fermented milk, kefir, also inhibited the influence of cortiso l. Kefiran, a polysaccharide secreted from L. kafiranofasiens GKL-28 d iminished the cortisol or NA influenced IFN-beta production. But phosp hatidylcholine had no significant effect in this system. These results suggest that DG, lipids from kefir and kefiran may be equated as anti -stress food component.