Immune dyshomeostasis in lifestyle-associated diseases: a new paradigm for personalized medicine and prevention
Non-communicable diseases, including metabolic, inflammatory, and malignant disorders, now dominate global morbidity and mortality. These chronic, lifestyle-associated diseases expose the limits of strategies focused on suppressing late-stage inflammation. We argue that immune dyshomeostasis - rather than overt inflammation - represents the more actionable target in lifestyle-associated disease. Across barrier tissues, immune circuits involving innate lymphoid cells and epithelial mediators such as IL-22 preserve tissue resilience under environmental stress. Metabolic regulators, including itaconate-NRF2 signaling, further constrain inflammatory activation and reinforce immune balance. A homeostasis-first strategy emphasizes early detection of pathway drift using feasible biomarkers, assignment of corrective levers spanning lifestyle, exposure hygiene, and pharmacology, and longitudinal tracking of restoration using tissue-relevant endpoints. Proof-of-principle interventions, including immune reset in autoimmunity, demonstrate that immune set-points are druggable while underscoring the need for earlier interventions. Together, these concepts position immune homeostasis as a unifying framework for precision prevention and translational immunology.
Authors
- Eicke Latz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1488-5666)
- Andreas Diefenbach (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9176-9530)
- Peter Duewell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0836-6448)
Institutions
- University of Bonn (DE)
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE)
- German Rheumatism Research Centre (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Current Opinion in Immunology
- Published
- 2026-03-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coi.2026.102754
- Primary Topic
- Diabetes and associated disorders
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00