Chronic inflammation plays an important role in many autoimmune diseases. Researchers are increasingly studying how inflammation is connected to metabolism—the way cells produce and use energy.
When immune cells become activated, their metabolism changes. Glucose, insulin, fatty acids, and ketones can influence inflammatory pathways and immune-cell behavior. This emerging field, known as immunometabolism, may help explain connections among insulin resistance, obesity, diet, metabolic health, and immune function.
Researchers are investigating whether improving metabolic health—or changing the fuels available to immune cells—might help reduce inflammation and influence autoimmune disease. The science is still developing, but it provides an intriguing connection between metabolic health and autoimmunity.
Immunometabolism is how metabolism and the immune system interact. Immune cells require energy to function, and the way they obtain that energy can change dramatically when they become activated.
Some activated immune cells increase their use of glucose, even when oxygen is available—a metabolic shift that resembles the Warburg effect seen in cancer cells. Other immune cells rely more heavily on fatty acids and mitochondrial energy production.
These metabolic differences are not simply consequences of immune activity. Researchers have discovered that metabolism can actually help determine how immune cells behave, including whether they promote or suppress inflammation.
This raises an important possibility: changing metabolism might eventually provide another way to influence excessive or misdirected immune responses.
Insulin Resistance and chronic inflammation are closely connected. When cells become less responsive to insulin, the body often produces more insulin to keep blood glucose under control. Insulin Resistance frequently occurs together with abdominal obesity, elevated blood sugar, and other features of metabolic syndrome.
Excess body fat—particularly visceral fat around the abdominal organs—can release inflammatory signaling molecules. At the same time, chronic inflammation can interfere with insulin signaling, creating a cycle in which metabolic dysfunction and inflammation reinforce each other.
This relationship is well established in metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Researchers are now investigating how much it may also influence autoimmune diseases and whether improving insulin sensitivity can reduce inflammation or disease activity.
Ketones are molecules produced by the liver when carbohydrate availability is low, such as during fasting or a very low-carb diet. They can serve as an alternative fuel for the brain and other tissues, but researchers have discovered that ketones may also act as signaling molecules.
One ketone, beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), has been shown in laboratory and animal research to influence inflammatory pathways, including the NLRP3 inflammasome, which helps regulate the body's inflammatory response.
This has raised interest in whether fasting, ketogenic diets, or other approaches that increase ketones might help reduce inflammation. Early human research is encouraging in some conditions, but evidence that nutritional ketosis can treat autoimmune disease remains limited.
The biological mechanism is plausible and worth studying, but clinical benefits need to be demonstrated disease by disease.
Improving metabolic health can reduce several factors associated with chronic inflammation. Weight loss, exercise, better blood-glucose control, improved insulin sensitivity, adequate sleep, and a nutrient-dense diet can all influence metabolic and inflammatory pathways.
For people with obesity or Insulin Resistance, these changes may be particularly important. Studies in several inflammatory conditions suggest that improving metabolic health can reduce inflammatory markers and sometimes improve symptoms.
Whether these improvements directly change the underlying autoimmune process is less certain. The effects probably differ among diseases and among individuals.
Still, metabolic health is important for overall health regardless of its effect on autoimmunity. If better metabolic health also helps regulate inflammation or immune function, that could provide an additional benefit.
• Metabolism and immune function are closely connected. The fuels immune cells use can influence how they behave.
• Insulin Resistance and chronic inflammation can reinforce each other, particularly in people with metabolic dysfunction.
• Ketones such as beta-hydroxybutyrate can influence inflammatory pathways, although their clinical importance in autoimmune disease is still being studied.
• Improving metabolic health through diet, exercise, weight management, sleep, and better glucose control can reduce several contributors to chronic inflammation.
• Immunometabolism is a promising field, but treatments based specifically on changing immune-cell metabolism are still developing.
• The effects of metabolic interventions on autoimmune disease need to be evaluated disease by disease rather than assumed to apply to all autoimmune conditions.
A 2026 scientific review examining how the metabolism of immune cells and their surrounding tissues may contribute to autoimmune disease and potentially provide new approaches to treatment.
A landmark study showing that beta-hydroxybutyrate, a ketone produced during fasting or carbohydrate restriction, can inhibit the NLRP3 inflammasome, an important inflammatory pathway.
A 2026 review examining how ketones, particularly beta-hydroxybutyrate, may influence inflammation and immune function and their possible role in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.