Nutrigenomics in lifestyle disorders: A Review

Abstract

In the era of increasing unhealthy dietary and lifestyle habits, maintaining a healthy diet is really important to prevent a broad spectrum of diseases. Lifestyle diseases occur due to certain unhealthy daily habits (such as smoking, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity) that lead to inappropriate relationships with the environment [1,2]. Diseases like obesity, CVD, asthma, etc. are usually caused due to unhealthy or imbalanced diets in addition to genetic factors. According to WHO, 17.9 million, 9 million and 3.9 million deaths occur annually due to CVD, cancer and respiratory diseases respectively [3,4]. Usually, lifestyle disorders are chronic and prolonged. Leading a healthy and normal life becomes very difficult for patients. They find it difficult to do even the regular physical activities [5]. According to WHO, 40 to 50% of deaths in developing countries and 70 to 80% of deaths in industrialized countries are caused due to “affluent society” diseases, which are due to heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke or lung cancer. The main cause for these diseases is a bad lifestyle; for example, insufficient exercise, unhealthy diet and drinking or smoking habits [6]. Due to a fast-paced life, people tend to find shortcuts for everything. Technological advances have reduced the amount of physical activity a person needs to do to complete any given task [7]. Though the rates of diseases related to improper lifestyle are increasing, they are usually neglected. Hence, developing countries are facing an epidemiological accumulation of diseases. As all these problems are related to obesity, the best solution for this is to create awareness about diet and diseases related to imbalanced diets, which leads to changes in genes. This can be done by nutrigenomics - the study of the effect of various components of the diet at the genome, proteome and metabolome level [8]. Food taken in the wrong quantity and which is of bad quality can have adverse effects on an individual’s health. Diet can bring about certain changes in genes, which can be studied in the areas of nutrigenomics, nutrigenetics, epigenetics, epigenomics and transcriptomics. This field requires understanding the action of nutrition on genes and proteins at a molecular level [8].

In this review article, we have compiled the relation of nutrigenomics with lifestyle disorders like CVD, asthma and metabolic disorder. Nutrigenomic studies can help us understand how genetic makeup responds to nutrition in terms of the transcription and translation processes. It also provides an opportunity to determine dietary requirements based on an individual’s genetics and can help in recommending personalized diets for individuals which can help prevent, manage and treat diseases.

Nutrigenomics brings in new techniques of experimentation, which gives rise to a new perspective in the field of research in nutrition [8]. This field requires an interdisciplinary effort, so that diet becomes healthy as well as easy and tasty to consume. It is certain that we cannot alter the genes we have inherited, but we can try and change how genes respond to the dietary environment. More research and work in this area can help prevent disorders related to nutrition and lifestyle by early identification and interventions like weight reduction, changes in diet, increasing the amount of physical activity, etc. The ultimate goal of nutrigenomics in lifestyle disorders is “Prevention than cure” [8].