Nutrition and Your Gene Pool

Winston Churchill was a hero for our world and underscored the backbone of England during World War II.  Mr. Churchill, however, was very overweight, loved fat-containing foods, drank a considerable amount of alcohol and smoked cigars.  Despite that, he worked as Prime Minister until the age of 77 and lived to the age of 90.  In contrast, Jim Fixx, changed his life by losing weight and quitting smoking at the age of 35 and created a “buzz” around running for health.  Mr. Fixx died running at the age of 52 and his autopsy noted severe coronary artery disease.  How is this possible?  Is it that a healthy lifestyle is bad and a bad lifestyle is good?  No, to the contrary, a healthy lifestyle generally produces a payout with regards to longevity and decreased disease severity.  However, our genetic response to nutrition and eating, an activity we do many times per day for a lifetime, is also undeniable.  Healthy lifestyle does include tailoring your diet to your genetic predisposition for health and disease.  Figuring out what your genetic code is, and what dietary changes need to be made to adjust to or correct your body’s makeup from this genetic code is called nutragenomics.  Essentially, there are very subtle changes in your genetic code called single nucleotide polymorphisms or pronounced snips (SNP). These very subtle genetic changes can make someone much more susceptible to disease from a lifestyle activity or a diet or much less susceptible to disease by adding certain nutrients.  Your genetic code via SNP analysis can be determined by simple swabbing of your cheek and sending this material off to a laboratory with a nutritional questionnaire regarding your current eating practices.  Coming back from this laboratory would be your gene analysis with suggested nutrient interventions and lifestyle modifications.  This is an important step to take in controlling your life and avoiding the randomness of either good health or bad health. 

Comments

[A Twitter User]

Thanks Dr. Delegge...good information.

Winston is one of my heroes, despite his lifestyle. Finest Hour a great movie about his later years: http://bit.ly/KSAGS

Any thoughts on making fitness/good health a lifestyle? This is something I have always struggled with.

Thanks, Ron McNutt