Food Structure, Fermentation, and Gastrointestinal Immune Health

Nutritional immunology investigates how foods, dietary ingredients, and natural products shape immune responses and human health. Food structure, composition, processing, and fermentation can influence digestion and the availability of compounds that interact with the intestinal barrier, immune cells, and gut microbiota. Dietary bioactives and functional foods may affect inflammatory responses and barrier function directly or through changes in microbial composition and activity. Research on these relationships spans food characterization, microbiology, cellular studies, animal models, and human research. However, food properties, microbiota changes, and immune outcomes are often studied separately, and findings across experimental models can be difficult to connect to human health. Further investigation is needed to clarify how food processing and matrix characteristics influence the release and activity of dietary compounds, how the microbiota contributes to immune effects, and which findings translate across models. Integrating food science, microbiology, and nutritional immunology can help address these gaps.This Research Topic aims to advance understanding of how food structure and processing, dietary bioactives, and fermented or functional foods influence gastrointestinal immune health. We welcome studies examining how these factors affect intestinal inflammation, barrier function, and immune responses, including effects mediated by the gut microbiota. Research may use in vitro, animal, or human models and should clearly connect the food or dietary exposure to an immune outcome, such as intestinal inflammation, barrier integrity, or mucosal immune responses. By bringing together complementary approaches in food science, microbiology, and nutritional immunology, this Research Topic seeks to clarify mechanisms and strengthen the evidence base for food-based strategies that support gastrointestinal immune health.To gather further insights into food-mediated effects on gastrointestinal immunity, we welcome contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Food structure, composition, and processing as modulators of bioactive release and mucosal immune responses• Mechanisms by which dietary bioactives and natural products affect intestinal inflammation, barrier function, and mucosal immunity• Microbiota-mediated effects of foods and dietary ingredients on gut immune responses• Fermented and functional foods, probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, or postbiotics with demonstrated immune effects• In vitro, animal, and human studies linking food properties or dietary interventions to immune outcomesWe welcome Original Research, Reviews, Mini Reviews, and Methods papers that investigate or support the study of food-mediated effects on gastrointestinal immune health. Topic editors: Omar Porras, Katarzyna Dziendzikowska, Monika Trząskowska Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/87062/food-structure-fermentation-and-gastrointestinal-immune-health