Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics

Precision Nutrition seeks global integration of phenotyping and omics data. The integration of the emerging knowledge derived from different genetic approaches is required in order to outline new therapeutic tools for advancing the prevention and personalized management of chronic diseases through Precision Nutrition. For a better understanding of nutritional genomics, it is necessary to analyze mutations and polymorphisms as well as copy number variation. Environmental factors such as smoking, physical activity, and diet modify gene expression and influence the disease risks and occurrence. In fact, several genes within our genome are known to influence the metabolism of nutrients. The main genes, whose variants are related to body weight loss in response to hypocaloric diets in adults, are involved in the regulation of lipid metabolism and adipogenesis; others are related to carbohydrate metabolism, energy intake, expenditure, and the circadian rhythm. There are examples of clinically significant nutrigenetic interactions in diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. Total fat intake and hypocaloric diets interact with variants of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR), uncoupling proteins (UCP1 and UCP3), leptin receptor, and melanocortin 4 receptor (MCR4) which can also affect weight gain or loss in genetically predisposed individuals. Nutritional genetics studies have made slow but steady progress in examining gene and dietary intervention interaction, but there are still many challenges. Further investment in studies of nutritional genomics for chronic diseases holds promise for the integration of genomics with other ``omics'' such as transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. Precision Nutrition may provide greater insights into how diet and lifestyle alter the expression of our genes and the interplays between genes and environments on disease development and progression.