You are what you eat—and what you eat may be encoded in your DNA. Studies have indicated that your genetics play a role in determining the foods you find delicious or disgusting But exactly how big a role they play has been difficult to pin down "Everything has a genetic factor, even if it's small," says Joanne Cole, a geneticist and an assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "We know that there is some genetic contribution to why we eat the foods we eat. Can we take the next step and actually show the regions in the genome(基因组) ?"
New research led by Cole has gotten a step closer. Through a complex and overall genomics analysis, her team has identified 481 genome zones, or loci, that were directly linked to dietary patterns and food preferences. The findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed( 同 伴 评 审), were presented last month at the American Society for Nutrition's annual flagship conference.
They build on a 2020 Nature Communications study by Cole and her colleagues that used data from the U. K. Biobank, a public database of the genetic and health information of 500,000 participants. By scanning genomes, the new analysis was able to target 194 regions associated with dietary patterns and 287 linked to specific foods such as fruit, cheese, fish, tea and alcohol. Further understanding how genetics impact how we eat could expose differences in nutritional needs or disease risks.
"One of the problems with a lot of these genomics studies is that they're very small. Put more simply, they don't have enough people to really be able to identify genes in ways that are firm. This study had a huge quantity of people, so that's really powerful," says Monica Dus, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, who wasn't a part of the new research but studies the relationship between genes and nutrition. "The other thing that I thought was really great is that they have so many different aspects that they're measuring , as with diet. They included cholesterol(胆固醇), the body, socioeconomic backgrounds."
As the research advances, Dus says such genome analyses could possibly help health care providers—and even policymakers—address larger issues that affect food access and health. "Instead of trying to persuade people to eat this or that, a more powerful intervention is to make sure there aren't ‘food deserts' or to make sure that there's a higher minimum wage—things that have a broader impact," she says.
