Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Making
Sense of
SNPs
Small genetic variations can
have a big influence on your
health and affect your
nutritional needs, too.
By Julie Kendrick
HEALTHY EATING
NUTRIENTS
Knowing more
about your SNPs
can help you make
choices to promote
overall health.
Personalized Nutrition
Our growing understanding of
genetic variety casts even greater
doubts on the appropriateness of
one-size-fits-all recommended daily
allowances (RDAs) the average
amount of nutrients declared
necessary for maintenance of good
health by the Food and Nutrition
Board of the Institute of Medicine of
the NationalAcademies.
As we begin to understand nutri
genomics and study SNPs, what we
recognize is that the differences from
one person to another may be much
greater than previously thought, says
Jeffrey Bland, PhD, author of The
Disease Delusion and founder and
president of the Personalized Lifestyle
Medicine Institute, a nonprofit organization for patient-activated healthcare.
Whats adequate for some would
be nutrient deficient for others, he
says. Our needs are based on our
unique genetics, so the idea of one
recommended level of nutrition is
becoming outdated.
Ordovs believes that RDAs are a
good starting point for most individuals, but he agrees that the approach
has limits. Its very difficult to
account for all the particular needs
Developing nutritional therapies for specific SNPs will be a challenge for researchers and clinicians for many years to come. The
nutritional implications of some SNPs, like those below, are at least partially understood; but there are millions more that have
not yet been examined. In all cases, science is just beginning to scratch the surface, and counsel is considered speculative.
Still, knowing your specific genetic profile can be beneficial. If you have a SNP that predisposes you to inflammatory
conditions, for instance, you can take precautionary measures by embracing an anti-inflammatory diet and working with
your healthcare provider to monitor biomarkers related to inflammation. Knowing your SNPs may also help motivate you to
adjust your lifestyle in ways that maximize resilience and immunity.
SNP
ASSOCIATED
GENE
HOW COMMON
ISTHIS SNP?
KNOWN HEALTH
IMPLICATIONS
NUTRITIONAL
CONSIDERATIONS
MTHFR
Methylenetetrahydrofolate
reductase
Up to 50 percent of
people carry at least
one variant on the
MTHFR gene.
ApoE4
Apolipoprotein E
One to 2 percent of
people carry two E4
alleles (variant forms
of a gene located
along a chromosome);
for these people, the
risk of Alzheimers
disease is 15 times
greater than for those
who inherit ApoE3
from both parents.
About 30 percent of
Alzheimers disease
patients have at least
one copy of ApoE4.
BRCA1
BRCA2
Breast cancer
1, early onset;
Breast cancer 2,
early onset
While considered
mutations among
the general population, variations in
these genes occur
frequently enough in
some groups to be
considered SNPs. Five
to 10 percent of breast
cancer occurrences
and 15 percent of ovarian cancers are related
to variations in BRCA1
and BRCA2 genes.
HEALTHY EATING
NUTRIENTS
Should I Get
Genetic Testing
(Even If Im Healthy)?
WEB EXTRA!