Nutrigenomics: concept, advances and applications

The interface between the nutritional environment and cellular/genetic processes is referred to as Nutritional genomics or Nutrigenomics. It seeks to understand the effects of diet on an individual's genes and health. Nutrigenomics seeks to provide a genetic understanding for how common dietary chemicals (i.e., nutrition) affect the balance between health and disease by altering the expression or structure of an individual's genetic makeup. It is the science that examines the response of individuals to food compounds using post-genomic and related technologies (e.g. genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics etc.). Nutritional genetics is considered as the combination of nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics. Nutrigenomics is establishing the effects of ingested nutrients and other food components on gene expression and gene regulation. It will also determine the individual nutritional requirements based on the genetic makeup of the person (personalized diet) as well as the association between diet and chronic diseases which will help to understand the etiologic aspects of chronic diseases such as cancer, type-2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease (CVS). Nutrigenetics on the other hand identifies how the genetic makeup of a particular individual co-ordinates his or her response to various dietary nutrients. It also reveals why and how people respond differently to the same nutrient. The long-term aim of nutrigenomics is to understand how the whole body responds to real foods using an integrated approach termed 'systems biology'. The huge advantage in this approach is that the studies can examine people (i.e. populations, sub-populations - based on genes or disease and individuals), food, life-stage and life-style without preconceived ideas. Nutrigenomic approaches will enhance researcher abilities to maintain animal health, optimize animal performance and improve milk and meat quality.