Food and Genes

[hallenrm]

One would hardly ever think that our diet could affect our genes, but the results of a recent scientifi study points to that direction indeed. A recent news story doing rounds in the science circles, which has been published in the New Scientist magazine too, indicates that your genetic make up could have been influenced by the diet of your nanny.

 

Isn't that very interesting? It does demolish commonly held belief that our food is essentially limited to our digestive tract and hence has no relation to our genes.

 

Interesting topic for a discussion here! Is it?:shrug:

[ronthepon]

Its the expression of genes that seems to be affected, rather than the genes themselves.

[hallenrm]

Its the expression of genes that seems to be affected, rather than the genes themselves.

 

True, but the genes that are expressed are in fact the genes that matter! :shrug:

[Racoon]

Eat too much food, and you won't be able to fit into your jeans anymore :)

[gribbon]

Dietary chemicals influence gene expression in several ways: They act as ligands for transcription factor receptors, are metabolised by primary or secondary metabolic procedures (thereby altering concentrations of substrates or intermediates), and lastly, they also alter signal transduction pathways.

 

When this was proven researchers used microarrays to assess yeast genes and found a diauxic shift from fermentation respiration which resulted in metabolic reprogramming that activated genes previously unassimilated with nutrient extraction/utilisation. The only trouble with this experiment was, of course, that human genes are more multifaceted than yeast, but having said that, human genomes react in a similar way to dietary chemicals, so this shouldn’t be inaccurate.

 

It would interest me to know how animal genes compare…:)