Role of Diet in Mesenchymal Stem Cells’ Function: A Review

Diet and lifestyle can greatly affect health and susceptibility to diseases. The nutritional needs of stem cells and their role in quantity and quality of stem cells is of great importance for cell renewal and healing process in injured tissues, because nutrients have an important role in stem cell physiology as many nutrient-derived metabolites released during the catabolic process can induce chromatin reshaping, epigenetic modifications and gene expression modulation. It seems that the maintenance of stem cell populations for tissue renewal and physiological restoration can be considered as one of hallmarks of health status. Based on the role of stem cell in tissue renewal and regeneration, establishing the nutrition requirements in diseases, during trauma recovery, and in aging process should come into consideration for establishing nutrient recommendations to decrease the prevalence of diseases and to advance the understanding of the biological pathways and mechanisms that connect stem cells nutrition requirements with diseases and aging.