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I am particularly excited for the rise of easier genome sequencing and the role that will play in nutritional advice for individuals. The more we learn about ge

I am particularly excited for the rise of easier genome sequencing and the role that will play in nutritional advice for individuals. The more we learn about genes and how people react differently to different foods the more intrigued I am by the idea of an "optimal" diet only being achieved on a person-by-person level.

mathgeek 11y ago
"The more we learn about genes and how people react differently to different foods the more intrigued I am by the idea of an "optimal" diet only being achieved on a person-by-person level." For me, it's implicit that optimizing diet can only be done on an individual basis. It's pretty obvious, at least to me, that taking maternal twins and having one be active while the other remains inactive for most of their lives leads to the need for different diets between the two.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Ok I was going to say something about genetic clustering and how there're probably just a few diets needed to cover most people. Then, behavior. Right, it also depends on where you are in your life (age, exercise, previous diet, health issues). It's fair to say an optimal diet is an individual thing.
hga 11y ago
I would say that's maybe 1/3 of what we need to know to accomplish your objective. The other thirds are the 100 trillion microbes that make up your microbiome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiota), and the fact that we still don't know hardly anything about the relationship of various foods and how we eat them to health. Especially since different genomes and microbiomes make this particularly difficult for quality research.
CuriouslyC 11y ago
The problem with this is that the majority of your response to a given diet is actually a result of your gut microbial ecosystem. Not only does that mean an order of magnitude more genes are in play, but the microbial ecosystem is dynamic, and adapts to changes in diet, stress levels and a variety of other factors.

mathgeek 11y ago

"The more we learn about genes and how people react differently to different foods the more intrigued I am by the idea of an "optimal" diet only being achieved on a person-by-person level." For me, it's implicit that optimizing diet can only be done on an individual basis. It's pretty obvious, at least to me, that taking maternal twins and having one be active while the other remains inactive for most of their lives leads to the need for different diets between the two.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Ok I was going to say something about genetic clustering and how there're probably just a few diets needed to cover most people. Then, behavior. Right, it also depends on where you are in your life (age, exercise, previous diet, health issues). It's fair to say an optimal diet is an individual thing.

hga 11y ago

I would say that's maybe 1/3 of what we need to know to accomplish your objective. The other thirds are the 100 trillion microbes that make up your microbiome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiota), and the fact that we still don't know hardly anything about the relationship of various foods and how we eat them to health. Especially since different genomes and microbiomes make this particularly difficult for quality research.

CuriouslyC 11y ago

The problem with this is that the majority of your response to a given diet is actually a result of your gut microbial ecosystem. Not only does that mean an order of magnitude more genes are in play, but the microbial ecosystem is dynamic, and adapts to changes in diet, stress levels and a variety of other factors.