Precision Nutrition: The new trend in nutrition research

Ten years ago, as a young professional, I was very concerned about my appearance. Maintaining a healthy weight was top on my priority list. Lunch breaks were not moments I looked forward to, but another moment to decide between what to eat and what not to eat. How many calories were coming from that piece of yam? What kind of oil was used in the preparation of the tomato sauce? How much fat was in the piece of catfish? These and many more were the myriad of queries bugging my mind when I stood before the buffet table at lunch time.

As the chit-chat went on at mealtimes, all colleagues seemed to have a major concern: either to maintain a healthy weight or loose excess weight. One of our colleagues, who was an expert in nutrition, would generously offer a long list of foods so that we could either achieve or maintain a slim figure. But it was frustrating to have to comply with such a long list of food restrictions.

A decade later, thanks to the emerging area of Precision Nutrition, the list of dos and don’ts might become way more personalized – and hopefully not even that long!

Through Precision Nutrition, researchers are investigating the impact of our genes on how effectively our bodies are able to make use of the nutrients we eat. This novel field in Nutrition and Dietetics is an exciting area of research and holds great promise for all, says Dr. Brain Mattews, president of Genesmart, a leading health company known for science-based health solutions.

In this decade, the one-size-fits-all approach may not yield expected results. It is for this reason that researchers have been investigating whether customizing people’s diet according to their DNA can improve their health.

Dr. Thomas Fungwe, Associate Dean for Research, Institutional Assessment and Operations of the College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences at Howard University, and a Professor in Nutrition himself, learned through participation in personalized (precision) nutrition research that his genome allows him to drink a cup of coffee and fall into a deep sleep within minutes, whereas other people may drink the same cup of coffee and remain wide awake all night.

He explained that nutrigenetics addresses how an individual’s genetic makeup influences how she/he utilizes nutrients and bioactive compounds – just like the caffeine example. Nutrigenomics goes even further, as it focuses on how a person’s diet influences the expression of the genome, that is how genes are turned on and translated into physical and metabolic characteristics.

A randomized controlled trial conducted by Carlos Celis- Morales and team in Europe, the FOOD4Me study, investigated the effect of gene-based dietary advice information on weight and waist circumference. Participants were assigned to one of four groups. The first group received non-personalized dietary advice and physical activity recommendations; the second group received personalized advice based on their current weight, diet and physical activity level. A third group received personalized advice based on their current weight, diet, physical activity, waist circumference and blood cholesterol. The fourth group received personalized advice based on their current weight, diet, physical activity, waist circumference, blood cholesterol and genetic makeup.

Interestingly, after six months of intervention, the researchers observed a greater reduction in weight and waist circumference among participants assigned to group four who carried the fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) gene. Also, regardless of the group to which they were assigned, that is despite having awareness of genetic predisposition to obesity or not, all FTO risk carriers in the study had greater improvements in obesity-related markers than did non-risk carriers

These findings reflect a major scientific breakthrough in the area of Nutrition and Dietetics, which had so many unanswered questions as to why several weight loss programs have failed or yielded insignificant outcomes.

Interested in reading more about this topic? Here’s where:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28381478