[Childhood feeding, chronic-degenerative disease in adults, and nutrigenomics]

Significant advances have been made in understanding the relation between dietary factors and disease prevention. However, the identification of those who will or will not benefit from dietary intervention strategies remains a major obstacle. The execution of the Human Genome Project has brought forth a wealth of information about the structure of the genome and the spectacular development of broad genomics technologies have catalyzed a new era in both medicine and nutrition. Each person is genetically unique and phenotypically distinct, and the genetic makeup that individuals inherit from their ancestors is responsible for variation in responses to food. Evidence continues to implicate dietary components and genetic susceptibilities as important determinants of chronic diseases, cancer risk and tumor behavior. Variation in incidence among and within populations with similar dietary patterns suggests that an individual's response may reflect interactions with genetic factors, which may modify gene, protein, and metabolite expression patterns. Nutrigenetics studies the genetic basis of the different individual responses to the same nutritional stimulus and Nutrigenomics is defined as the interaction between nutrition and an individual's genome. With the application of "omic" technologies, proteomic, metabolomic, transcriptomic, will increase our fundamental knowledge of the interaction between life processes and diet. The identification of diet-gene interactions will offers an opportunity to develop dietary interventions that will lead to evidence-based dietary strategies for restoring health and fitness, obviate the effects of genetic factors for preventing diet-related diseases and provide important clues about gene expression and gene modulation by environmental factors.