Eating behavior is complex; humans make food decisions each day that are influenced by a variety of personal, social, cultural, environmental, and economic factors. Food habits have a considerable influence on individuals’ health.
A healthy diet helps maintain and improve overall health , which provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories. While the related knowledge and understanding on the suitable diet for an individual remains fragmented and as most of them use the generic apps/ website to get a diet chart, which contains a common diet pattern for every individual, which does not suit everyone.
Each genome is unique and differs between parents, parent – children, siblings (except for identical twins), etc., leading to different responses to the same stimuli, food, diet patterns, behaviour, like and dislike for any items, etc., which makes a person different from the other.
As of which individuals show striking differences in their response to different diet patterns (some may have a good response to the keto diet , while the other may have a good response to Mediterranean diet) or different responses to a single diet. One weight-loss strategy does not work for everyone as genetic differences seemed to predispose individuals to lose different amounts of weight on different types of diets.
We often listen to conversations on weight gain/loss saying “I eat less but put on weight easily. My friend eats more and doesn’t put on weight”!! There are important factors which determine how our bodies respond to food, some of which are environmental (sleep, stress, exercise) and the diversity and population of our individual gut microbiome.
Genes play a role in how a person responds to a particular diet, processes fats and carbohydrates, duration of an individual’s post-meal blood glucose level etc, which led to the development of a field called Nutrigenomics.
Nutrigenomics is the science of the “effect of genetic variations on dietary response and the role of nutrients and bioactive food compounds in gene expression” (that studies the relationship between the human genome, nutrition and health). This helps towards developing an understanding of how the whole body responds to a food via systems biology, as well as single gene/single food compound relationships.
Nutrigenomics can be the game-changer that empowers you on your wellness journey or enables you to achieve your fitness goals.
Nutrigenomics adheres to the following precepts:
- Poor nutrition can be a risk factor for several diseases
- Common dietary chemicals can act on human genome ,either directly or indirectly, to alter the gene expression or gene structure
- The degree to which diet influences the balance between the health and disease depends on individual genetic makeup
- Some diet regulated genes play a role in onset, progression and severity of chronic diseases
- Dietary interventions based on knowledge of nutritional requirements , nutritional status, and genotype can be used to prevent chronic diseases.
What can you learn from nutrigenomics?
- Your power to absorb vital nutrients required for a healthy body and mind
- The impact of nutrients on various organs and pathways
- Nutritional factors that can protect your genome from damage
- Impact of genes on your lifestyle, diet, fitness, habits, etc.
In recent years, personalised nutrition has become more than a trend as a new generation of consumers are demanding the personalization of diet.
Diet personalization is the concept of adapting food habits to individual needs , depending on their genetic makeup, lifestyle and environment. This stems from a deep understanding of how nutrients are metabolized, and how these metabolites are utilized, characterization of eating patterns, etc.
Some benefits of personalized diet include
- Targeting specific nutritional deficiencies and medical conditions
- Heart-healthy diet or management of blood sugar,
- Treat or prevent metabolic disorders
- Improve your overall health
The convergence of technology and increasing consumer interest in nutrition and wellness with increased access to information has led to DNA-based products and services focused on better nutrition and health.
How Mapmygenome Can Help You:
We at Mapmygenome, have carved out a niche for personalizing health, wellness, nutrition, fitness and medicine. We as pioneers of personal genomics in India believe that food has the power to transform our lives.
With our screening test MyNutriGene, you can choose the ideal diet profile best suited to your body. MyNutriGene will also give you an insight into your immunity, genetic predisposition to specific health conditions, and choose optimal health plans to prevent most of these risks.
Our test will also help you learn about your metabolism, fat/carbohydrate response, food intolerance, and eating behaviour. Coupled with a comprehensive genetic counselling session with our certified experts, this test will aid in the development of a highly personalized and effective plan of action.
“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much , we have found the safest way to health” – Hippocrates
