Nutrigenetics and Precision Nutrition for prevention of cardiometabolic diseases      

Prof Vimal Karani S

Professor in Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics,

Deputy Director of the Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health,

University of Reading, Reading, UK

Nutrigenetics has a potential role to play in the prevention and management of cardiometabolic diseases. Individuals differ from each other in their genetic makeup due to which individuals respond differently to various lifestyle factors such as diet and physical activity. Despite the remarkable progress in nutrigenetics research, several factors need to be considered before the translation of existing nutrigenetics insights to personalized and precision nutrition in ethnically diverse populations. Cardiometabolic diseases are heritable traits that arise from the interactions between multiple genes and lifestyle factors such as unhealthy diet and physical inactivity. Dietary factors play an important role in the development of cardiometabolic diseases because of the variation in the food that is being consumed in different parts of the world. Although several studies have examined the gene-nutrient interactions, the findings have been quite inconsistent and hence, unable to develop an optimum diet for each ancestral population. Nutrigenetics has highlighted the complexity of gene-diet interactions, but it offers opportunities to re-evaluate criteria used to set dietary guidelines and the contribution of genetic variation to optimal nutrition for individuals from different ethnic groups. In line with this, a large-scale collaborative project called GeNuIne (Gene-Nutrient Interactions) Collaboration that aims to develop precision nutrition strategies based on the evidence from nutrigenetics, nutrigenomics, epigenetics, and gut microbiomics using cohorts from various ethnic groups has been initiated. This collaborative study focuses on utilizing a multi-omics approach to improve understanding of the underlying mechanisms of gene-diet interactions and the implementation of precision nutrition. Thus, integrating data from multiple disciplines could help in designing personalized and precise dietary interventions for the prevention and management of cardiometabolic diseases,