Dry eye disease: food, diet, and nutritional genetics. A narrative review

This narrative review deals with dry eye disease (DED), a multifactorial disorder with varied prevalence worldwide, affecting the ocular surface constituents, and commonly associated to inflammation. Changes induced by DED provoke tear-film instability and a range of clinical manifestations, from soreness, blurred vision, to severe complications and loss of quality-of-life. Diet, nutrition and nutraceuticals have been identified as intervention targets for better managing DED pathophysiology. To gain knowledge in nutritional requirements and how to modify the diet based on the necessities by means of nutritional genetics, is an excellent approach to the above issues. Molecular-genetic tools, specifically omics sciences in relation to food, diet, and nutritional genetics in DED, are the main purpose of this work. Between July- November 2025 we accessed the following databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane library, by using the keywords: diet OR natural food OR nutrition OR nutritional genetics OR nutrigenetics OR nutrigenomics OR omics sciences OR personalized diet AND dry eye disease OR dry eye disorder OR ocular surface disease. According to selection criteria, and a refined evaluation, 238 studies were finally found eligible for this review. DED-related topics included in this work were: (1) Diets, food, and nutrients, (2) Nutritional genetics. (3) Dietary recommendations for DED, and (4) Final remarks and conclusions. Using new omics technologies, including nutrigenetics, nutrigenomics, epigenetics and epigenomics, and metabolomics, the influence of diet and nutrition on DEDs are becoming clearer. However, knowledge of the interplay between food, nutritional genetics and DED is just beginning to emerge.