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Nutrition, Genes and Modern Disease: A Current Dilemma or a Legacy of our Past
Citation
Myers, S and Williamson, S, Nutrition, Genes and Modern Disease: A Current Dilemma or a Legacy of our Past, Journal of Diabetes & Metabolism, 5, (7) pp. 1-5. ISSN 2155-6156 (2014) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2014 Myers S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
DOI: doi:10.4172/2155-6156.1000393
Abstract
Contemporary humans are genetically adapted to the environment that their ancestors survived in and that
consequently selected their genetic makeup. Since the agricultural revolution some 10,000 years ago, the lifestyles
and dietary requirements of modern humans have changed dramatically. It is suggested that these changes have
occurred too recently on an evolutionary time scale for the modern human genome to adapt. Therefore, our
ancestral genome is ill-suited for our current modern consumption and existence, and thus contributes to diseases
associated with contemporary lifestyles, such as cardiovascular disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes. It is therefore
suggested that a diet similar to our ancestors could circumvent many of our modern illnesses and serve as a
reference for better nutrition, health, and longevity. Although this model should certainly be commended for its
simplistic dietary practices that no doubt improve health and well-being; its premise is cemented in the thrifty
genome hypothesis and the fact that humans are modern hunters and gatherers whose genome is ill-suited for
modern diets. This is a disjointed view of modern humans and our ability to evolve under different eco regions and
nutritional pressures through post-genomic and post-transcriptional changes in our genome. Accordingly, a major
challenge associated with nutritional research is to understand how these changes in our genome reflect on our
nutrition habits and lifestyles to ameliorate many of our modern lifestyle diseases.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | Diet and genetics, Paleolithic, Hunters and gatherers, Type 2 diabetes, Thrifty genome, Epigenetics |
| Research Division: | Biomedical and Clinical Sciences |
| Research Group: | Nutrition and dietetics |
| Research Field: | Nutrigenomics and personalised nutrition |
| Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
| Objective Group: | Expanding knowledge |
| Objective Field: | Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences |
| UTAS Author: | Myers, S (Dr Stephen Myers) |
| ID Code: | 101170 |
| Year Published: | 2014 |
| Deposited By: | Health Sciences B |
| Deposited On: | 2015-06-11 |
| Last Modified: | 2015-09-16 |
| Downloads: | 243 View Download Statistics |
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