Losing weight through nutrigenomics

What is the best diet to lose weight? What are the right foods to stay healthy?

There is not a valid response to all of us. Often it happens that a diet that provides exceptional benefits to some, in others has no effect. We are all different and everyone needs a certain type of diet, or to avoid a certain type of food.

We respond differently according to our physical constitution, ethnicity, geographic location, work and life and also according to our genotype and phenotype. The differences between individuals are expressed , in fact, not only in our physical appearance, but also internally for example in a different capacity to metabolize nutrients or eliminate toxins.

Today, the genetic has scientifically confirmed these differences and has made available to us all, through simple tests, the opportunity to know what are the best behavior to us, in terms of food, and what is better to avoid. It is a branch of genetics called "nutrigenomics": a multidisciplinary science that manages to combine genetics with nutrition, trying to play an active preventive role in defending the body, based on proper and targeted nutrition, through the study of our genes.

But the genes are not everything, they do not work alone and do not determine us in an absolute way. They interact with our environment which in turn modifies the expression of genes. For example, a light-skinned person (genes) not burn his skin in the sun (environment) if he exposes with the necessary caution.

The environmental aspect that infuence us most and on which we, fortunately, can exercise more control, is what we put into our body through diet. If we know better the effects that nutrients have on our particular genetic constitution, we can exercise more effective control on quality and on our expectations of life.

The conceptual foundations of this medical branch may be summarized as follows:

•  The elements introduced with the diet may have in the human genome direct or indirect effects , by altering the expression and / or structure of genes;
• The diet can be a risk factor or a prevention tool for degenerative diseases;
• The degree to which diet may influence the balance amoung health and disease depends on the genetic map of each individual;
• A nutritional intervention based on knowledge of genotype and nutritional status of the individual can be used to prevent or cure disease.

The nutrigenomics assesses globaly twenty genes responsible of the taste, of metabolism of sugar and fat, and some others the lifestyle. All of our genes have DNA variations, also known as polymorphisms: some variations are favorable to health, others are not, and it is on those that the nutrigenomics shape the dietary suggestions or style life, including exercise. First it extrapolates the genetic profile of each individual and then it proposes for each metabolic area the specific actions to be done in nutritional and behavioral terms.

In the future the nutrigenomics will help us to have a targeted, independent and safe prevention of the development of some diseases, such as certain cancers. It is undoubtedly a big step forward for medicine and our health.

I think however that like all things, it may also have some risks and that therefore the individual approach should be flexible and critical. Indeed, for people who are particularly anxious or who may already be defined with orthorexia, therefore has a fundamentalist behaviour towards of their diet, this approach may facilitate an imbalance in their relationship with food.

I think it is very useful, even necessary ,choose a healthy diet. But healthy eating also means have love for food: it is through the pleasure, that the food give us, that we taste the food, which is an important part of our lives even from a social point of view. If born in us an obsessive attention, we deprive ourselves of the pleasures of food and we can lose its social role, which is very important.

In this way with food, or with certain foods, we can develop an altered relationship that can not be, in my view, defined healthy.

Be aware of possible risks, such as that described, it is useful to make this amazing scientific discovery, really useful for our health.