Mar 02, 2022 23:00:00

Experts explain what happens to the body with meals, where human genes change with 'food'

Diet is associated with taste, appearance, calories and nutrition, but according to molecular biologists, diet is also closely related to genes. Monica Dus, a molecular biologist at the University of Michigan, explains that diet has a significant effect on genes.

What you eat can reprogram your genes – an expert explains the emerging science of nutrigenomics

https://theconversation.com/what-you-eat-can-reprogram-your-genes-an-expert-explains-the-emerging-science-of-nutrigenomics-165867

Even if you don't get the point that diet affects genes, you can understand it by looking at the relationship between 'queen bee and worker bee'. The two are genetically identical organisms, but while worker bees eat nectar and pollen, queen bees grow as singular solids by eating royal jelly synthesized in the body of worker bees.

According to Dus, micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals contained in foods express specific genes, and the gene products produced by them can affect the body. For queen bees, royal jelly affects the brain and organs to activate fertility, and for humans, methionine affects genes related to cell growth and division, and vitamin C affects genes that promote antioxidant activity. Is known to give.

The effects of diet on genes can spread across generations, giving new meaning to the big concept of the food chain, Dus said. For example, when a human drinks milk, the body may be affected not only by the milk, but also by the grass that the cow ate. In fact, it has been found that

there are differences in the amounts of fatty acids and vitamin C between pasture-fed cow milk and grain-fed cow milk.

Similarly, it is thought that the diet of human mothers may change the composition of breast milk and act on the genetic switch of babies, but it is unknown what kind of effect it will have because research has not progressed. ..

In addition, foods eaten by humans affect not only the cells of the body but also the bacteria in the body. Experiments with mice have shown that the breakdown of short-chain fatty acids by gut bacteria changes the amount of serotonin, also known as the happiness hormone. It is thought that not only foods but also chemical substances contained in food packaging may affect the body.

'Scientists are just beginning to study how diet acts on genes. Many of these studies have so far been done only in animal models, where diet-gene interactions are human. There is still a lot of unclear what it means to us. '