People think of food as calories, energy, and sustenance. The latest evidence shows that food talks to our genome, which is the genetic blueprint that directs the way the body functions down to the cellular level.
Food and genes can affect your health. The field of nutrigenomics focuses on the idea that food can deliver important messages to an animal's genome.
Many questions remain shrouded in mystery as this discipline is still in its infancy. Researchers have learned a lot about how food components affect the genome.
I am a scientist who studies the interactions between food, genes, and brains in the effort to understand how food messages affect our biology. One day scientists will be able to decipher this transmission of information and make us healthier and happier.
nutrigenomics has shown that our relationship with food is much more intimate than we thought.
If the idea that food can drive biological processes by interacting with the genome sounds crazy, one need look no further than a hive to find a proven and perfect example of how this happens. Worker bees live a few weeks and are sterile.
The queen bee has a life span that lasts for years and a fecundity so potent she gives birth to an entire colony.
Worker and queen bees are the same organisms. They are two different life forms because of the food they eat. The queen bee eats royal Jelly.
Both foods provide energy, but royal jelly has an extra feature: it can create the genetics of a queen bee.
Food is translated into instructions. Remember that food is composed of calories. Carbohydrates, sugars, and fat are included.
Food has vitamins and minerals. These compounds and their breakdown products can cause genetic switches in the genome.
Genetic switches determine how much of a certain product is produced, like the intensity of the light in your house. Royal Jelly contains compounds that help form the queen's organs and sustain her reproductive ability.
In humans and mice, the methionine in meat and fish can influence the genetics of the cells.
The function of cellular pathways that can repair the genome if it gets damaged is one of the things that vitamins C and other vitamins can do.
Depending on the type of nutrition information, the genetic controls can be activated and the cell can receive it. Most of the studies have been done in animal models.
The ability to alter the flow of genetic information can be done across generations. Studies show that the diet of grandparents can affect the activity of genetic switches and the risk of disease.
One interesting aspect of thinking of food as a type of biological information is that it gives a new meaning to the idea of a food chain. If our bodies are influenced by what we eat, then what we eat could affect our genome.
Milk from grain-fed cattle has different amounts and types of vitamins C and A, compared to grass-fed cows. When humans drink different types of milk, their cells receive different messages.
A human mother's diet can change the levels of vitamins and fatty acids found in her breast milk. This could change the type of nutrition the baby is receiving, although it is not known if this has an effect on the child's development.
We are part of the food chain. The food we eat does not change the genetic switches in our cells, but it does affect the organisms in our guts, skin, and mucosa.
In mice, the levels of a brain chemical that regulates mood, anxiety, and depression are altered by the breakdown of short-chain fatty acids.
The flow of genetic information inside cells can be altered by added ingredients in food. Folate is enriched in bread and cereals to prevent birth defects.
Some scientists theorize that high levels of folate in the absence of other naturally occurring micronutrients could contribute to the higher incidence of colon cancer in Western countries, possibly by affecting the genetic pathways that control growth.
This could be true with the chemicals found in food packaging. A compound found in plastic, called BPA, turns on genes in mammals that are critical to development, growth, and fertility.
Some researchers think that the age of sexual differentiation and fertility can be influenced by the effects of the pesticide BPA in both humans and animal models.
It is possible that the genetic information in food could arise from a variety of factors, including the agricultural, environmental, and economic policies of a country.
Scientists are decoding genetic food messages and their role in health and disease. We don't know how vitamins act on genetic switches, what the rules of communication are, and how the diet of past generations affects their offspring.
Many of these studies have been done only in animals, and there is still much to be learned about what the interaction between food and genes means for humans.
It is clear that unraveling the mysteries of nutrigenomics is likely to empower both present and future societies.
Monica Dus is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan.
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