Nutrición y genes

Abstract

Human genome knowledge has triggered a huge revolution in Nutrition Sciences. Such a science has developed from an energetic approach to the nutritional genomic. Firstly empirically and later on in a deeply scientific way, the role of the diet on disease prevention has been finally established. However, everyone has not the same response and such a difference has partly a genetic cause. The bidirectional property of nutrition-gene interaction has triggered two sub-concepts: nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics. The former one is mainly focus on the role of nutrients in gene expression, while the second one studies the genetic bases of nutrient requirements. Several polymorphisms associated with disease risk have been discovered; however, other factors, as the diet, take a role in the manifestation of such a disease. In spite of the big developments already done during the last years, social, legal and ethical aspects remain to be ascertained.