Diet Advice Via DNA

(AP)  As a registered dietitian, Ruth DeBusk has eaten a healthy diet for a long time. As a geneticist, she wondered if she could do better.

So earlier this year, she had her DNA tested by a company that gives personalized nutrition advice based on genetics. The results indicated she had a heightened need for folate.

That made DeBusk double her minimum amount of folate, a B vitamin.

"I'm more diligent about being sure that I get it every day if possible, because it really matters," said DeBusk, who has a private practice in Tallahassee, Florida, and has written a book on nutrition and genetics.

"I'll actually make an effort to drink a glass of orange juice or eat an extra big salad in the evening, being aware it hasn't been one of my better folate days."

That's the way it's supposed to work in a field called nutritional genomics or nutrigenomics. The basic idea is this: There are genes that affect the risk of getting illnesses like heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and diabetes, and the impact of those genes can be modified by what you eat. Everybody carries one version or another of each of those genes. So why not find out what gene versions you have and base dietary advice on that?

"Every time we go to the supermarket we're using educated guesses about what we should eat and what we shouldn't eat," says Raymond Rodriguez, director of the National Center of Excellence for Nutritional Genomics at the University of California, Davis.

In the future, more of that guesswork may be replaced with accurate, personal DNA-based dietary advice, which Rodriguez says is "rapidly emerging on the horizon."

But that time isn't here yet, most experts say. Nutrigenomics is still in its infancy, with plenty to be learned, and it's not yet clear what role it may play in standard medical practice.

Most of the research targets heart disease and cancer, and scientists may be ready to deliver personalized diet recommendations in those areas within five years, said Jose Ordovas, director of the nutrition and genomics laboratory at the U.S. Department of Agriculture http://www.hnrc.tufts.edu/departments/labs/genomics.html>Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Boston.

"We have scientific evidence that the concept is right, that we can provide something along those lines in the future," Ordovas said. "We are not there yet."

No? You can walk into some pharmacies or grocery stores right now and pay $99 for a DNA test kit that will get you personalized diet advice for heart health, bone health, or any of three other areas. It's from Sciona Inc., a small company based in Boulder, Colorado, that started offering DNA-based diet advice in 2001. Such tests are also available by mail order and on the Internet.

Sciona customers collect their own DNA with a cheek swab, complete a diet and lifestyle questionnaire and send it all in for analysis. Sciona encourages customers to review its advice with a doctor.

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