Did you know that what you eat can change your genetic expression? Welcome to the exciting new science of nutrigenomics, in which food scientists, doctors and nutritionists study how our genes interact with nutrients. The premise is that diet is a big causative factor in chronic disease: a possible reason why Asians are more prone to hypertension and heart disease. In nutrigenomics, it is also believed that diets are responsible for most types of cancers.
Various theories suggest that an out-of-balance diet can change our gene expressions and make us susceptible to chronic illness. The solution: Choose food that is appropriate to your genetic make-up. In fact, the examples nutritional scientists trot out in support of their theory certainly appear convincing. For instance, a study has concluded that the Japanese who relocated to the US after the second world war and adopted a Western diet, saw their cholesterol levels soar. Closer home, nutrition scientists claim that Indians are becoming increasingly prone to lifestyle diseases because we are shunning our traditional vegetarian menus and filling our plates with red meat and overprocessed food.
Antonia Trichopoulou, director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Nutrition, University of Athens, Greece, says the focus in the last 10 years has been on identifying a dietary pattern that maximizes longevity. According to her, it is undeniably the ‘Mediterranean diet’, or the ‘gift of god’ as she calls it. Trichopoulou, who was part of a team of food scientists, medical doctors and researchers from the Mediterranean region that visited India recently to promote their diet as the “model of good health”, says researchers have for long acknowledged it as one of the healthiest traditional diets in the world. The Mediterranean diet, she claims, protects your heart, deters cancer and boosts your body’s immunity.
Even the Japanese are fervently promoting their traditional diet. Daisuke Hutami of the Japan Dietetic Association in Tokyo says an increasing number of Americans, convinced that the reason for the longevity of the Japanese lies in their dietary pattern, are now copying their diet, which relies more on fish, rice and legumes such as soya beans.
Since the 1960s, when Prof. Ancel Keys, from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, launched the Seven Countries Study, where he studied the effect of good health and dietary pattern, the Mediterranean and Japanese diets have emerged as front-runners in the global good health diet chart. Unfortunately, Prof. Keys’ study did not include the Indian diet.
However, interest in the traditional Indian diet is now increasing all over the world. A number of studies have concluded that apart from some positives, the modern-day Indian diet relies heavily on starchy food and has too much white sugar.