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Nutritigenetics is a branch of nutritional genomics which aims to identify genetic susceptibilities to disease in individuals across the human population and genetic variation in nutrient genome interaction between populations. http://nutrigenomics.ucdavis.edu/?page=Home Nutrigenitics is not to be confused with nutrigenomics, which focuses the role specific foods have on activating genes that prevent, or cause, certain genetic illnesses like Alzheimer’s and Cancer. http://www.nutrigenomics.org.nz/ Nutrigenetics, unlike nutrigenomics, focuses on the hereditary factors involved in nutritional genomics. While nutritigetetics promises to one day improve health care by making treatment and prevention more personalized to individual patients, but the discipline is still in its relative infancy compared to other branches of medical science. Research on human patients is costly, ethically challenging, and choosing a valid sample populations to test claims representing the true population is very difficult. http://content.karger.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowFulltext&ArtikelNr=334853&Ausgabe=256827&ProduktNr=232009 None the less, much nutrigenetic research is taking place, focusing on testing specific genes’ association with chronic diseases and other factors related to overall health. With further advances in gene identification, the field of nutrigenetics may offer people personalized nutritional disease prevention advice based on the genetic makeup they exhibit.

Nutrigenetics and Obesity

As one of the fastest growing causes of chronic diseases around the world is obesity, making it a major concern of nutrigenetic researchers. While the causes of obesity are pluralistic in nature, an experts dispute many of the details, two things are clear. First, obesity is effected and sometimes exacerbated by the content of an individual’s diet, and second, obesity predisposes individuals to life threatening health problems such as hyperlipidemia, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. Thus, there is great potential for nutrigenomic researchers to identify genes that make certain individuals more susceptible to obesity related dieses. Moreover, nutrigenomic researcher may also increase awareness of the healthy disease shielding foods, and risk increasing foods of obese individuals with certain genes according to the genomic effect of certain nutrients. http://content.karger.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowPDF&ArtikelNr=324350&Ausgabe=254896&ProduktNr=232009&filename=324350.pdf

The proposed thrifty gene is an example of a nutrigenetic factor in obesity. The thrifty gene theoretically causes bearers to store high calorie foods as body fat, and is most likely an evolved protection against starvation during famines. However, more experiments must done on individuals with varying gene sequences to identify the potential thrifty genes that may be affected by nutritional factors. The thrifty gene was first proposed decades before the invention technology that makes nutritional genomics research possible, but nutrigenetics is breathing new life to the old theory. Nutrigenetics research may not only prove the existence of thrifty genes, it might lead to cures, and disease prevention specific to bearers of such genes.