YOUR HEALTH INFO/NOTES

Nutritional Genomics – Genome and Disease Treatment

Eating fruit and vegetables will help prevent chronic diseases  in 30-60 percent of us.

The question is “ why not 100% of diseases in 100% of us?”

The answer is that  IN ESSENCE they would … if all of us were identical and all diseases were due to identical causes. The real reason is that  prevention/cure depend on an interplay of a persons’ genes and the specific phytonutrient or pharmaceuticalS . So, people vary in genetic make up, diseases vary in cause (even though they have the same name such as atherosclerosis, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, etc) and, consequently, response to treatment/prevention is different.

ON HEART DISEASE -  Heart disease is not a disease cause by high cholesterol, high blood pressure or lack of exercise but by an innumerable number of gene abnormalities. For example:

• High Blood Pressure -  By itself, one way it would be treated is by restricting salt intake. Yet, because of a gene mutation, some peole cannot respond to salt restriction and a salt restriction diet would be of no benefit to them.
• Apolipoprotein E – There are six major types of apolipoproteins. Depending on which gene variation a person has, they would be at a decreased, average or high risk of heart disease. For example, a person with the C-III variation, which inhibits lipoprotein lipase and hepatic lipase; has a slow destruction of   triglycerides leadings to severe  hypertriglyceredemia  (very high levels or triglycerides in the blood.) In such cases, such a  person would not respond to low cholesterol  diets/medicines but would probably benefit from exercise.
• Atherosclerosis – A major cause of heart disease is atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries. This hardening is mostly  caused by VLDL cholesterol damage caused by free radicals. There are many different ways to protect against free radicals. For example, a gene called GST stimulates the body to make Glutathione, a potent antioxidant. If a persons' GST gene makes all the Glutathione that the body can use, broccoli, which stimulates the formation of glutathione, would be of no use. On the other hand, a person that has a "slow"  GST gene would  benefit from broccoli.

ON TYPE 2 DIABETES - There are at least 150 gene variants that can give rise to diabetes. There are two major categories of diabetes. One results from an inability to make insulin and the other arise from the inability to use the insulin that the body makes. So a diabetic  that can synthesize insulin would be helped by  chromium supplements while a diabetic that does not make insulin would not be helped and would need insulin injections. 

 (More to follow- On Broccoli & Genes)