Nutritional genomics is a science which studies the relationship between human genome, nutrition and health. It is categorized into nurtigenomics and nutrigenetics. Nutrigenetics is the study of individual differences at the genetic level influencing response to diet where as the Nutrigenomics is scientific study of nutrition and genetics to discover the different ways of people that examines the response of individuals to food compounds using post-genomic and related technologies i.e., the molecular relationships between nutrients and response of genes.
The dietary constituents can affect the gene expression or gene structure on transcription and DNA structure. The nutrients- gene interactions are direct interactions, epigenetic interactions and genetic variation. Nutrients acts as a ligand for transcription factor receptors in direct interactions. In epigenetic interactions, the nutrients can alter the structure of DNA so that the gene is chronically altered whereas in the genetic variations the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) can alter the expression or functionality of genes. In the gene-diet interaction, 97% of the genes known to be associated with human diseases result in monogenic diseases i.e., a mutation in one gene is sufficient to cause the disease.
Nutrigenetics examines the effect of genetic variation on the interaction between diet and disease or on nutrient food. Genetics plays a crucial role in determining an individual’s risk of developing a certain disease.
Nutrigenomics mainly focuses on the effect of nutrients on the genome, proteome, and metabolome. Nutrigenetics is the science of identifying and characterizing gene variants associated with differential responses to nutrients, and relating this variation to disease states. Nutritional genomics relationships are Transcriptomics, Proteomics, Metabolomics and Bioinformatics.
The future of nutritional genomics are personalized nutrition i.e., diet according to person’s genetic makeup, novel functional foods and new biomarkers gene expression profile during disease progress will be available for the early detection of disease. Nutritional genomics is nothing but a science that helps us to plan our diet according to our genes.
The promise of nutritional genomics is personalized medicine and health based upon an understanding of our nutritional needs, health status, and our genotype.