Using genetic variation to optimize nutritional preemption.

Abstract

One of the promises of nutritional genomics is a set of dietary recommendations that leverage our understanding of nutrient-gene interaction in the preemptive dietary management of complex chronic diseases. Whether nutritional genomics can deliver on this promise is a matter of debate and controversy. Although nutritional genomics is often viewed as an extension of pharmacogenomics, the pharmacogenomics paradigm is a disease-centric reductionistic model that overshadows both the complexities and opportunities to be leveraged in preemptive nutritional pharmacology. Moreover, the pharmacogenomics model tends to set clinical expectations that nutritional genomics may not be able to achieve. The biological boundaries of nutritional pharmacology are being tested in many areas of preventive medicine such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. In this regard, the lessons learned in one disease may be germane to the other. Recent results from the Vitamin Intervention for Stroke Prevention (VISP), the Norwegian Vitamin (NORVIT), and the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE) 2 trials underscore the incertitude of translating epidemiologic data into preemptive nutritional guidance. Moving ahead, the genetic determinism of the nutrigenomic model needs to take on a more holistic and phenotypic focus. To the extent this can be done, preemptive nutrition may one day become a safe and practical reality.