Obesity, a complex disease that involves energy imbalance and chronic low-grade inflammation, is implicated in the pathogenesis of several chronic non-communicable diseases. As dietary components modulate the human body's inflammatory status, the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII®), a literature-derived dietary index, was developed in 2009 to characterize the inflammatory potential of a habitual diet. Abundant research has been conducted to investigate the associations between DII and obesity. In this narrative review, we examined the current state of the science regarding the relationships between DII and the inflammatory pathophysiological aspects related to obesity. DII is associated with inflammation in obesity. The most pro-inflammatory diet was directly related to higher levels of pro-inflammatory markers, which included C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-1β, and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). Therefore, evidence suggests that the use of the DII may be useful for understanding the relationship between diet and the inflammatory process related to obesity.
Keywords: Inflammation; biomarkers; cytokines; diet; weight gain.