Genes, diet and public health

Abstract

Common chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease (CHD), diabetes, cancer, hypertension and obesity are significantly influenced by dietary and other behavioural habits. There is increasing scientific evidence that genetic factors (SNPs), conferring either protection or risk, also contribute importantly to the incidence of these diseases. SNPs are of particular interest because they influence disease in a complex but largely unknown manner by interacting with environmental and lifestyle factors. Because genetic factors also affect a person's response to dietary habits, SNPs likely will be useful in helping to determine and understand why individuals differ in their response to diets. Therefore, the discovery of SNPs will likely revolutionize not only the diagnosis of disease but also the practice of preventative medicine. Other developments, like new biomarkers and noninvasive imaging techniques, might turn out to be highly sensitive and specific in order to identify patients at risk, especially in cases with asymptomatic coronary heart disease. Thus, further knowledge of such new risk factors and their interaction with nutrition, has the potential to provide a more precise and personalized approach to prevent and treat chronic diseases like coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction and stroke.

Novel Technologies for Assessing Dietary Intake: Evaluating the Usability of a Mobile Telephone Food Record Among Adults and Adolescents

“…A link between diet and the development of certain cancers, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, and type 2 diabetes has been established. However, scientific evidence linking diet and genetics to these diseases continues to emerge [ 1 ]. The development of genome-wide association studies has led to the identification of genetic variations associated with risk for diseases such as type 2 diabetes [ 2 ], atherosclerosis [ 3 ], and Crohn disease [ 4 ].…”

Personalized Care: Prevention of Lifestyle Diseases

“…Personalized nutrition is, therefore, expected to play a role in determining the kind and nature of diet suitable for different individuals owing to the environmental and genetic differences. Many of the diet-associated health burdens have been linked to SNPs, which is used to predict individual response to drugs in a population [34]. The most common examples of these polymorphisms are leptin/leptin receptor polymorphism (related to obesity gene), apolipoprotein (E and A1), which is related to CVD, and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHR) related to folate metabolism [35].…”

Revisión sobre el aceite de oliva: historia, impacto mediático y sus aplicaciones médicas en la dieta mediterránea

“…Y para contestar, ¿cuál es la dieta óptima? Seedorf y col (43) nos dan este consejo: "Deben restringirse las grasas saturadas. En cambio, la tradicional Dmed, cuya principal fuente de grasas es el AOV, contiene sustancias antioxidantes, vitaminas E y C, así como polifenoles y juega un papel muy importante en la prevención de las enfermedades cardiovasculares".…”