Symposium introduction: Nutrition and gene regulation

Abstract

This symposium provided an overview of research in the field of nutritional genomics, including developments in nutrigenics, proteomics, and metabolomics. Speakers reviewed nutrient-gene-health processes that have the potential to help prevent many diseases, and greatly affect our optimal nutrition and health. Humans differ in their metabolic regulation, and the optimal diet for one person is not necessarily the optimal one for another. Determining which diet is best for each individual will require personalized assessment. Progress towards the goal of individualized diets and health care will make diagnostic use of single biomarkers of diseases inadequate for accurate surveillance and intervention in problems of metabolic regulation in healthy individuals. At a 2003 symposium on next-generation nutritional assessment, Bruce German (1) noted that measuring entire metabolic pathways is the ultimate scientific goal, and that modern analytic techniques are in a position to deliver such capabilities. His challenge to us at that time was to build the metabolic knowledge to understand metabolism as a whole, and provide guidance to individuals to change their diets and lifestyles to affect metabolism in a net positive direction (2). This symposium shows impressive advances in that direction, with the promise of accelerating progress as our knowledge base in nutritional genomics continues to grow.