As we learn more about nutrition from ongoing research, we are likely to find even more ways in which what we eat affects our personal health. One exciting area of research now is nutritional genomics.
Genomics is the study of genes, their functions in your body, and how the environment may influence gene expression.
Your genes determine your inherited, specific traits. With the completion of the Human Genome Project, the complete sequencing of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in your cells is now known. Your DNA contains the genetic instructions needed to develop and direct the activities of your body.
Nutritional genomics is concerned with how the specific components in foods that you eat interact on a cellular level with the expression of your genes. Certain dietary components can cause different effects on your genes, and thus, initiate a very specific response in your body that could be different from the response it initiates in another person. For example, nutritional genomics will help determine the specific dietary combination of types of fats that you should consume to lower your risk of heart disease based on your genetic makeup.
As more becomes known about the application of nutritional genomics, you will have more control over how your diet affects your long-term health.
Terms:
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) – Genetic material within cells that directs the synthesis of proteins in the body.
Human Genome Project – A project sponsored by the United States government to determine the complete set and sequencing of DNA in human cells and identify all human genes.
Gene expression – The processing of genetic information to create a specific protein.
Nutritional genomics – A field of study that researches the relationship between nutrition and genomics (the study of genes and gene expression).
