Opportunities and Challenges in Nutrigenomics and Health Promotion

Not all individuals respond identically, or at times in the same direction, to dietary interventions. These inconsistencies likely arise because of diet and genomic interactions (nutrigenomics effects). A host of factors may influence the response to bioactive food components including specific polymorphisms (nutrigenetic effect), DNA methylation patterns and other epigenomic factors (nutritional epigenomic effects), capacity to induce anuo. suppress specific mRNA expression and patterns (nutritional transcriptomics), the occurrence and activity of proteins (proteomic effects), and/or the dose and temporal changes in cellular small molecular weight compounds will not only provide clues about specificity in response to food components, but assist in the identification of surrogate tissues and biomarkers that can predict a response. While this 'discovery' phase is critical for defining mechanisms and targets, and thus those who will benefit most from intervention, its true usefulness depends on moving this understanding into 'development' (interventions for better prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment) and a 'delivery' phase where information is provided to those most in need. It is incumbent on those involved with food and nutrition to embrace the 'omics' that relate to nutrition when considering not only the nutritional value of foods and their food components, but also when addressing acceptability and safety. The future of 'Nutrigenomics and Health Promotion' depends on the ability of the scientific community to identity appropriate biomarkers and susceptibility variants, effective communications about the merits of such undertakings with the health care community and with consumers, and doing all of this within a responsible bioethical framework.