Scientists look to DNA for personalized diets

Firstly, I'll like to thank all the comments that was posted so far and in the future if any. I'll try and improve this blog in anyway I can. Okay, so back to this. I chanced upon this article while searching for articles for my general paper. This is from MSNBC heath and I thk it's realli cool:

"NEW YORK - 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 needed more folate.

So DeBusk doubled her minimum amount of folate, a B vitamin found in leafy greens and citrus.

“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, Fla., 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.”

Personalized dietary advice
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 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.”

DNA test kit
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, Colo., 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.

The company acknowledges that some scientists say it’s too soon to offer such a service, but says its testing is based on solid research. Current testing focuses on 19 genes and the company is studying others, said Rosalynn Gill-Garrison, chief scientific officer and a company founder.

Sciona’s approach basically starts with standard healthy-eating recommendations and modifies them when genetic analysis indicates a need for something more, Gill-Garrison said.
After a DNA test, Sciona may recommend steps like eating more broccoli or omega-3 fatty acids, she said, or limiting caffeine to protect against bone loss.

Gill-Garrison said studies show that people with a certain version of a gene called MTHFR tend to have high blood levels of a substance called homocysteine, which has been linked to a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. Studies also show that people with this gene version can reduce their homocysteine levels by taking in more folate, she said. So that’s the advice Sciona customers with that gene version get.

High levels of homocysteine also can be spotted with a standard blood test at a doctor’s office.

A work in process
Ordovas said the trouble with anybody providing gene-based dietary advice now is that scientists don’t yet have the whole picture of what genes should be considered. With current tests, it’s like trying to size up a landscape by looking through a keyhole, he said. You can’t tell what you’re not seeing.

“At least in that very narrow region of our genome that they are looking, they have potential that they may provide some valuable information, and it could benefit some people,” he said. But advice based on current tests “can also be misleading because you are ignoring pieces that are very important,” he said.

Rodriguez said he doubts anybody will be harmed by the current tests, and that they’re beneficial because they get people to think about diet and lifestyle. But he said they remind him of the first VCRs or CD players to hit the market.

“It is an expensive new technology ... and it will probably, in my estimation, become more efficient, more accurate and more affordable with time.”

DeBusk, who said she has no financial ties to any of the companies, figures the time for DNA-based diet advice has come.

“The scientist in me says we shouldn’t do this now, we need to wait another 20 years until many studies have been done,” she said. But her clients want to know what the best science is right now, and “it’s difficult to say, 'Come back in 20 years.' You can’t do that.

“Do we know everything we’d like to know? No. ... Do we know enough to start introducing this type of technology and start the long process of educating people? I would say yes.”"

Cool, isn't it? Personalised diets using DNA. Might be a great help to me since I need to gain a lot of weight, haha. Maybe I just lack in sth. Anyway,somehow I thk this technology seems a little dangerous. I mean, yea it's a new technology but just sth is missing, i thk. What if the genes that they are looking at indicated a person needs calcium but yet there is a gene undiscovered in the person that actually too much calcium could harm him so only a certain right amount is enough, not too much, not too little. So, yes, more studies should be done so that personalised diets become even safer and more accurate.

“At least in that very narrow region of our genome that they are looking,
they have potential that they may provide some valuable information, and it could benefit some people,”

But advice based on current tests “can also be misleading because you are
ignoring pieces that are very important,” he said.

Commentary

Today I won't post any articles but I will be commenting on events and disasters that has happened/are happening in the world today after the tsunami on Dec 26th 2004. First ,Dec 26th; tsunami; Coastal parts of Indonesia and some countries around the epicentre ;the effects of the tsunami could have been less pronounced if the mangrove swamps had not been cleared.

January 6th-13th, Heavy Weather; California to Pennsalvania;in California, a low-pressure system with drenching rains and heavy snows at higher elevations, dumped up to 11 inches of rain and caused a large mudslide in La Conchita, killing 10. Total storm-related deaths reached 25. Los Angeles has had 17 inches of rain since Dec. 27, 2004. The same system piled up more than 4 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevadas on Saturday, stranding an Amtrak train and closing roads and airports. Since the end of December, the Reno-Lake Tahoe area has up to 19 feet of snow, the most since 1916. In Arizona 7 people died from storms and 7 of 15 counties were declared states of emergency. More heavy weather from Indiana to Pittsburgh caused flooding all along the Ohio River where state emergencies have been declared for 56 of 88 counties in Ohio. Three people died in a Pittsburgh tug boat accident and 5 in Ohio from storm-related causes.

January 8th to 12th, wild storms; Europe; wild storms battered many European countries, leaving 19 dead; High winds and flooding left people without power and shut down ferries, trains, and highways.

January 22nd to 23rd, Snow storm; Eastern U.S. ; strong snow storms swept across the Midwest to the Atlantic coast, killing 20 people. A blizzard blanketed parts of the Northeast with snow depths up to 38 in north and south of Boston and the entire island of Nantucket lost power. By the end of January, Boston had the snowiest month on record with a total of 43.1 inches of snow.

February, Extreme winter weather; South-East Asia; extreme winter weather including cold, snowfall, avalanches, and flooding in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan killed more than 1,400 people in the last month and a half; Due to the lack of communications actual numbers were hard to confirm.

March 18th-22nd, Heavy rains and melting snow; Afghanistan; more than 200 killed; thousands homeless; this followed what was already the worst winter in years that had killed several hundreds of people.

In June, there was flooding in Southern China; Many were killed; Rain not historic high but too heavy in such a short period of time. There was also a hailstorm in Beijing, someting rare indeed as it was summer. (A rainstorm on July 12 04' in Shanghai claimed 7 lives, a disaster which happens only once a century.)

July 7th, terrorist attack;London; four bombs exploded in three subway stations and on one double-decker bus during the morning rush hour, killing 52 people plus 4 bombers, and wounding more than 700.

On July 21st, terrorist attacks;London; four bombs partially detonated but did not explode on three trains and a bus in London exactly two weeks after the July 7th bombings.

July 26th, Monsoon;Mumbai; a record of 37 in of rain fell in Mumbai (Bombay) in a 24 hour period; the most ever recorded in India. A week of relentless monsoon rains left 1,000 dead in western India.

August 29th, Hurrican Katrina; Los Angeles, Missisipi, New orleans; Predicted to be a category 2 but ended up being a 5; devasting effects; the third deadliest hurrican in the U.S.; More than 1,200 killed .

September 1st-3rd, Typhoon Talim ; China; major flooding and landslides, extensive crop damage; killed at least 129 people.

September 6th-7th, Typhoon Nabi; Japan; killed at least 18 people.

September 24th, Hurrican Rita; Category 3; Strong storm surges and heavy winds caused major damage in the Louisiana and Texas coastal areas; Heavy rains also drenched New Orleans, causing the Industrial Canal levee to breach, re-flooding parts of the city.

September 20th-25th, typhoon Damrey; Philippines, China, Thailand, Nepal; killed at least 122, primarily from flooding.

October 1, terrorist bomdings; Bali; Three suicide bombers hit Bali restaurants in the resort beach area; killed 22 people.

The last few months , Dengue fever; Singapore and Malaysia; Dengue fever was (and still is) a major concern in these two states as the warm climates were perfect breeding places for them; Number of people infected was on record high in both states.

October 19th, Hurrican Wilma; Mexico; Wilma is the 12th hurricane of the Atlantic season, the largest number of hurricanes recorded since 1969.

Now, fear of a bird flu pandemic; World;H5N1 strain might mutate into another form where human-human transmission will be high and widespread(for now it's from infected birds to humans) . It might cause deaths up to millions; Many drug companies are planning to produce large quantities of vaccines and medications like Tamiflu to fight the pandemic if it strikes; However, there was a sign that the strain might be resistant to Tamiflu, a powerful antiviral drug. Therefore, they are now currently working on a flu vaccine that can be inhaled.

"Experts consider the avian flu the single biggest threat to human health in the world today.
The H5N1 virus has killed and forced the destruction of tens of millions of birds and can on occasion be transmitted to people, often killing them.

A slight mutation would enable the virus to be passed easily from person to person and because it is such a new virus, experts believe it would sweep around the world, killing millions of people, if it is not stopped." (MSNBC health)

Latest from NewScientist(oct 18): Antarctic glaciers calving faster into the ocean; "The edges of the Antarctic ice sheets are slipping into the ocean at an unprecedented rate, raising fears of a global surge in sea levels, glaciologists warned on Monday.

The findings confound predictions made just four years ago, by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that Antarctica would not contribute significantly to sea level rise in the 21st century. In one area, around the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica, glaciers are dumping more than 110 cubic kilometres of ice into the ocean each year, Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, US, told a meeting at the Royal Society in London, UK. This loss, which is increasing each year, is many times faster than the ice can be replaced by snowfall inland, he says.

The impending ice disaster centres on Pine Island Bay on the shores of the Amundsen Sea, where the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers enter the sea. These glaciers, like many in West Antarctica, are perched on underwater mountains. The meeting heard that warmer ocean waters are circulating beneath the ice and melting their bases at a rate of 50 metres a year.

As this happens, the glaciers float clear of the submarine mountains and slide into the ocean. According to Andy Shepherd at the University of Cambridge, UK, they are discharging ice three times faster than a decade ago.

These glaciers are being dubbed the “plug hole” of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. If the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers disappeared, they alone could raise sea levels worldwide by more than a metre, says Rignot.

Antarctic glaciers are much bigger than those in warmer climates. They are up to a kilometre thick, tens of kilometres wide and hundreds of kilometres long. Connected to inland ice tributaries, they drain the continent’s ice caps, which are the largest stores of frozen water on the planet.

In many places, the glaciologists reported that the recent acceleration in glacier flows has been triggered by the break-up of a series of floating ice shelves at the continent’s edge. These shelves acted like a cork in a bottle, holding back the glaciers.

After the Larsen B ice shelf – a 3000 square kilometre floating slab of ice – broke up over three days in 2002, glaciers behind it afterwards accelerated eight-fold. “The ice mass balance of Antarctica is controlled by these ice shelves,” says Rignot, who believes Antarctica is now responsible for the majority of global sea level rise.

Researchers also warned that the larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet is not as stable as thought. A recent study suggested that it might be accumulating snow in its high interior – possibly supporting the IPCC’s predictions – but it warned that little was known about events on the coast (Science, vol 308, p 1898).

Rignot revealed that several major coastal glaciers in the east are now known to be accelerating, like their counterparts to the west."

[Acknowlegdement: Infoplease.com(for most of the disasters I've listed), NewScientist, MSNBC health]

Comments: I''m sure many of us have watched "The Day after Tomorrow" and many have also said it will never happen because it is not possible. But looking at all these events around the world in just a year. The chance of being possible could have increased, maybe except for the ice-age part in the movie as I myself dun thk it's possible too. Global warming, a possible bird flu pandemic and terrorist attacks are now major concerns of everyone in the world now. And we definitely have to deal with each carefully.

Global Warming: In the movie, one of the characters mentioned "strongest hurricane, strongest typhoons, hailstorms, they all fit" Hasn't it all happened alreadi? Hurrican Katrina, typhoon Talim, extreme weather and the melting of glaciers; they are all because of Global Warming, because we did not take care of the environment well enough and it's either us or our children or grandchildren who is going to suffer and try to salvage everything. Is there anything? anything at all we can do? except to run, evacuate, save everything we could, help each other and to sacrifice sometimes. As for Earthquakes, sometimes there's just nothing we can do as well, except to wade them out and survive.

Terrorist attacks: The World is an uncertain place.Everyday is unpredictable. You could be on a train on the way to work/school and suddenly your whole world blanks out from a bomb which exploded on the train that you are taking. But no one really knows. How would you know that the guy who looks innocent, carrying a school bag, is actually carrying a bomb? It depends a lot on fate. If you are fated, you are just fated. However, You can't refuse to go anywhere because you are afraid of the world out there either. Even staying at home is unsafe too. Who knows, someone might plant a bomb in the lift when you are going downstairs. I'll be praying for World Peace.

Bird Flu: Bird flu used to be transmitted bird-bird but now there are cases of bird-human and soon, it will be human-human. The chance of it mutating is high and after mutation, its new strain is gonna be fatal and will cause a pandemic as predicted by many scientists, etc. The U.N. health agency has warned countries to prepare for a death toll of up to 7.4 million. 7.4 million; that's about 1/3 of the global population (I thk so, my math is not realli that good) and this is definitely a big figure.

If this generation of Homo Sapiens were to be extinct, will those who survive, evolve to be a new species of beings?(natural selection selects those who are able to survive and when they survive, they sometimes evolve because they grow stronger and are different). If all of our teachnology gets destructed with nothing except trees and stuff then its like starting all over again. We would have to start from the beginning, from scrap.I am currently still writing something about evolution, I dunnoe if I am going to blog it or not(most likely I'm not) but I did make some comments that early Homo Sapiens care for the Earth a lot, they let nature be nature but as we grow and change, we began to use its resources without replenishing it and even harming it with our waste. Are we able to reverse all these so that we may still survive? No one knows.