The Coming of Age of Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics

In recent years, human health has begun to face a new type of crisis. While the greatest risks of mortality in previous centuries were attributed to acute infectious disease, chronic metabolic disease is rapidly becoming a more significant concern, particularly in developed nations. According to the World Health Organization [1] , 65% of the world’s population now live in countries where obesity kills more people than diseases related to malnourishment. Medical advancements may have enabled us to outwit many of the pathogens that harmed us in the past, but now our most serious concerns are the diseases that arise from how we live. To address the rising prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cancer, it is imperative that we continue to develop our knowledge of the biological mechanisms that underlie these diseases and seek safer and more effective prevention and treatment. Needless to say, contributions from the fields of nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics are more critical now than ever before. Our understanding of genetics has progressed in leaps and bounds over the past decades, the apex of which was the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2004 [2] . Genetics play an integral role in every type of disease, whether the relationship is one of inheritance or the product of gene-environment interactions. This greater understanding of genetics has provided insight into the etiology of many diseases as well as the types of interventions that may be successful. We now understand that a variety of environmental stimuli trigger changes in gene expression, and that these changes underlie disease; for example, a decrease in global DNA methylation can upregulate genes involved in disease, such as cancer-promoting genes, thereby heightening the risk of developing cancer [3–5] . Clearly, nutrition and diet constitute a major source of environmental input, and there is reason to believe that increases in metabolic disease are associated with recent changes to the human diet and its impact on the genome. Published online: June 14, 2012