FOOD Scientists explore ties between diet and genes

The research could lead to customized, individual dietary recommendations.
BALTIMORE SUN
Jose Ordovas thinks he knows why diets work for some people, but not for others: It's in their genes.
"We don't all wear the same size shoes, so why should we think that the same diet is going to work for everyone?" says Ordovas, chief of the nutrition and genomic laboratory at Tufts University.
Ordovas is an expert in genetic responses to diets. He tries to find out why some ethnic groups are more prone to life-threatening ailments than others, and why people respond differently to diets, vitamins and exercise.
He and others say the government's reliance on a single food "pyramid" -- a mainstay on cereal boxes that lists recommended servings of traditional food groups -- will be replaced by personalized pyramids based on specific genetic profiles.
"There's certainly going to be more information out there about what people's food needs are, in terms of nutrition," said Robert Cousins, a professor of nutrigenomics at the University of Florida who studies the effects of zinc on genes.
Genetics' role
Scientists have known for years that genetics is a factor in human response to food -- why some people eat whatever they want and have low cholesterol while others on low-fat diets have high cholesterol.
But with the completion of the human genome project in 2000, they have stepped up searches for genetic markers and mutations. These markers and mutations may be why some people are more susceptible to obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporosis, or more responsive to drug therapies and diets. "The information just wasn't available until a few years ago," Cousins said.
Ordovas is studying residents of Singapore to learn why the island nation's three ethnic groups -- Indians, Malays and Chinese -- have different rates of heart disease. All three have roughly the same intake of fats, proteins, carbohydrates and cholesterol. They're also at the same general socioeconomic level. But Indians have four times more heart disease than the Chinese and twice the rate of Malays.