, Nutritionist
La nutrigenetics is the science that studies the influence of food components on DNA production of proteins. It can be defined as the part of genomics that studies genetic variants regarding the clinical response to specific nutrients.
La nutrigenomicsinstead, it studies how nutrients affect genome expression, that is the differences between nutrients capable of influencing genetic expression.
What genomics studies
We have seen how nutrigenetics studies how the genome affects the response to foods, while nutrigenomics studies how foods affect genome expression.
Il genome it can be defined as the set of genes of a cell that belongs to a simple organism (eg a bacterium) or a complex organism (eg man). In humans, the portions of the genome make up the chromosomes, which we inherit in pairs: 23 from the mother and 23 from the father.
Genes are portions of chromosomes made up of the bases of DNA, the bases are four molecules called Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine. These molecules come together in a double helix sequence called DNA.
In the DNA, and therefore in the genome, all the information that allows our body to live, think, move and act, as well as create our physical and mental responses.
The information of the DNA is transported in the cell nucleus and its information is translated into proteins, which will serve to ensure the correct functioning of the organism through structural proteins, enzymes, antibodies, etc.
The alteration of the constitutive characteristics of a protein may have no consequences or lead to a worsening / improvement of its function. Genomics then studies the factors that determine these functional alterations.
What is nutrigenomics for?
Nutrigenomics is a new science that studies as a food o drug (pharmacogenomics) affects our genes. Genes, in fact, can be activated or deactivated by the presence or absence of particular nutrients, demonstrating a close correlation between nutrition & DNA.
In the field of clinical research there are many active ingredients derived from plants (phytonutrients) to be studied.
I phytonutrients they can influence our genes, particularly in the prevention of cardiovascular, neurovegetative diseases, cancer and premature aging.
The substances most studied by nutrigenomics to date are flavoinoids, resveratrol, carotenoids, lycopene, thiocyanates, allicin and genistein.
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> Genetic diet, what it is and how it works
| Science Geek
