Nutrigenomics

The whole complex of molecular processes of human organism results from endogenous physiological execution of the information encoded in the genome but is also influenced by exogenous factors which include those originating from nutrition as major agents. Nutrient molecules assimilation within human body continuously allows homeostatic reconstitution of its qualitative and quantitative composition but also takes part in physiological changes of body growth and adaptation to particular situations. Nevertheless, in addition to replace material and energetic losses, nutritional intake also provides bioactive molecules which are selectively able to modulate specific metabolic pathways, noticeably affecting risk of cardiovascular and neoplastic diseases, which are the major cause of mortality in developed countries. Numerous bioactive nutrients are being progressively identified and their chemopreventive effects are being described at clinical and molecular mechanism level. All “omics” technologies (such as transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) allow systematic analyses to study dietary bioactive molecules effect on the totality of molecular processes. Since each nutrient might also have specific effects on individually different genomes, nutrigenomic and nutrigenetic analysis data can be distinguished by two different observational views: 1) effects of whole diet and of specific nutrients on genes, proteins, metabolic pathways and metabolites; 2) effects of specific individual genomes on biological activity of nutritional intake and of specific nutrients. Nutrigenomic knowledge on physiologic status and disease risk will provide both developments of better diagnostic procedures and of new therapeutic strategies specifically targeted on nutritionally relevant processes.