With Nutrigenomics, you can pinpoint the parts of your diet that have the biggest impact on your health and can reduce risk factors for disease, says Peart. Nutrigenomics is part of a movement in molecular biology towards big data. Genomics deals with the genome, i.e. with all of our genes. Transcriptomics looks at the transcriptome, i.e. all RNA molecules that serve as mediators between our genes and the proteins they produce
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We also have a proteome, a metabolome, a microbiome, and an epigenome, and all of these holistic groups of molecules are investigated through their corresponding “-omics.” Nutrigenomics asks how our diet influences all our genes and their transcripts and the resulting proteins, and how the carefully choreographed dance between all these molecules is altered by the food we eat and the drinks we drink. It is comparable to studying the effects of modern aviation on every single animal and plant on Earth. One such endeavor is nutrigenomics, the integration of genomic research with diet and, when possible, with
other lifestyle variables such as cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption.
The commercialization of nutrigenomics is leading to an increasingly short-sighted and egocentric view of health, according to which public deliberations have been replaced by personal choices that result in personal rewards, and this type of perspective, as is the case with wellness, can backfire when the results don’t live up to promises. Much remains to be discovered and determined in bringing together the science of bioinformatics, nutrition, epidemiology, molecular biology, and genomics, but future nutrigenomics research will undoubtedly provide further fascinating insights into both nutritional science and the human genome. Nutrigenomics involves a more comprehensive approach to understanding how nutrition influences the genome in terms of its expression and, more broadly, metabolism. From a nutrigenomics perspective, diabetes and obesity are both the result of an unbalanced diet that interacts with genes that were functional and adaptive in an earlier phase of human evolution when food was less abundant
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Fenech developed the concept of “Genome Health Nutrigenomics,” the science of how nutritional deficiencies or surpluses can cause genome mutations at the base sequence or chromosome level. Finally, nutrigenomics deals with the influence of nutritional components on the genome, the proteome (the sum of all proteins) and the metabolome (the sum of all metabolites). The hypothetical potential of nutrigenomics to transform healthcare is so great that a white paper from the UK Department of Health in 2003 predicted that as knowledge of genetics increases, “treatment, lifestyle advice, and disease prevention monitoring could then be suitably tailored to each individual. In addition, it is much easier to control and monitor the food intake of animals than that of
humans.It is
currently unlikely that the links between genes and diet that Nutrigenomics kits have been tested for have a significant impact on a person’s overall health. As an advance, nutrigenomics integrates nutrition, molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics, molecular medicine, and epidemiology to better understand the role of food as an epigenetic factor in the onset of these diseases. This overview is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the basic concepts, latest advances and studies in the field of nutrigenomics, highlighting the interaction between diet and gene expression and their relationship with human and animal health and their interphase between humans and animals. An increase in calcium intake further reinforced the genome-protecting effect of a folate-rich diet, whereas a high intake of riboflavin increased the genomic damage associated with a low-folate diet
further aggravated.
Nutrigenomics research advocates have named population-wide prevention and treatment of vitamin deficiencies as a top public health priority. If, on the other hand, the nutritional environment in which these individuals must grow is low in folate and riboflavin,
They can fight to survive in good health.