In my articles from time to time you find seemingly difficult terms like “nutrigenomics” and “nutrigenetics”. Here are some simple and immediate definitions that they can help you understand them.

Nutrigenomics is a science that studies nutrition as a source of regulation of one’s metabolism and as a healthy response to the onset, in a preventive way, of the main diseases, especially chronic and metabolic ones that negatively affect the quality of life. The research is pioneering and promising.

It also means abandoning the old concept that a calorie is a calorie and that feeling good necessarily coincides with the calorie deficit. Or better: with those drastic diets that require incredible food sacrifices, often impossible as they are contrary to the mechanisms that regulate appetite and nutrition in general.

The purpose of nutrigenomics is to analyze how nutrition modifies our genes and cellular responses and thus how to use it as an overall health improvement factor.

The ambition is to use an evolving discipline, used in space medicine and therefore in an extremely advanced field, to act against diseases, remove pathogens and toxins, repair cells and improve the way in which we assimilate the nutrients, within a healthy and complete nutritional framework.

Nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics go hand in hand. Nutrigenetics is applicable to the single individual: how his DNA reacts to the assimilation of molecules present in food. the goal of nutrigenetics is to provide a personalized intervention to prevent the onset of the most serious diseases, those with the highest negative impact on lifestyle.

It therefore has an anti-aging objective, but not simply anti-aging, but rather that of living longer, as healthy, independent people.

This custom focus is very important . It often explains why the same type of meal plan or diet works for some individuals and not for others.

There may be enzymatic or genetic problems with certain nutrients that can only be discovered with a thorough analysis. In general, the nutrigenetic approach aims to exploit nutrition to stay healthy, on an advanced scientific basis.

A genetic test can be considered prodromal to the adoption of a particular diet, in overweight individuals who have enormous difficulty in maintaining physical shape over time.

For example:

As longevity increases, Alzheimer’s cases increase, a devastating disease for those affected and for family members. Scientists from Tel Aviv University have isolated a compound contained in cannella and named CEppt and administered it to genetically modified mice to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

After 4 months of dosing, the researchers noted that the rate of disease development was much slower in treated than in untreated mice and that activity levels were comparable to non-sick mice.

The results are due to the fact that CEppt is able to inhibit the deposition of beta amyloid which forms the characteristic plaque of Alzheimer’s patients. This is a further confirmation that many substances contained in natural foods have a therapeutic role that comes to light in more and more research in the field of nutrigenomics .

Nutrigenetics can be considered useful because:

1. Analyze the patient’s health by identifying genetic risk factors, before adopting a diet plan (generally based on calorie reduction, particularly from energy sources such as carbohydrates).
2. It takes into consideration the modification of genes and the responsibility that this modification could have in the onset of serious chronic or metabolic diseases (and vice versa: how we can “rewrite genes” to reduce the risk).
3. Study how to prevent these mutations with a correct and personalized diet, based on your genotype.

To conclude, nutrition is a weapon that can be used to get better (through epigenetics), since nutrients are the building blocks with which we grow the body, in its structure molecular .

Thinking that everything we ingest is good or everything we don’t ingest is beneficial is very simplistic.

A personalized, informed approach is bound to bring positive results sooner or later. Boosting health from its very foundations.