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The Human Genome, Nutrigenomics and Nutrigenetics
Michael Fenech
Theme Director, Food and Nutrition, Food Science Australia, CSIRO Human Nutrition, Adelaide SA
Abstract
The term nutrigenomics refers to the effect of diet on gene expression. The term nutrigenetics refers to the impact of inherited traits on the response to a specific dietary pattern, functional food or supplement on a specific health outcome.
The specific fields of genome health nutrigenomics and genome health nutrigenetics are emerging as important new research areas because it is becoming increasingly evident that (a) damage to genome is the most fundamental disease; (b) risk for developmental and degenerative disease increases with DNA damage which in turn is dependent on nutritional status and (c) optimal dietary intake and tissue concentration of micronutrients for prevention of genome damage is dependent on genetic polymorphisms that alter function of genes involved directly or indirectly in uptake and metabolism of micronutrients and those genes required for DNA repair and DNA replication.
Development of dietary patterns, functional foods and supplements that are designed to improve genome health maintenance in humans with specific genetic backgrounds may provide an important contribution to a new optimum health strategy based on the diagnosis and individualised nutritional prevention of genome instability ie Genome Health Clinics.
Although it is not yet possible to make distinct dietary recommendations for prevention of DNA damage based solely on an individual’s genetic background it is feasible to use current diagnostics to determine whether dietary pattern or supplement recommendations actually cause benefit or harm to the genome of an individual.
Keywords
nutrigenomics, nutrigenetics, genome health, DNA damage, micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, nutrition, genetics.
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