title: Nutrient-gene interactions in benefit-risk analysis.
abstract: Individuals respond differently to nutrients and foods. This is reflected in different levels of benefits and risks at the same intake of a nutrient and, consequently, different 'windows of benefit' in terms of nutrient intake. This has led recently to the concept of 'personalised nutrition'. Genetic factors such as single nucleotide polymorphisms may be one source of this inter-individual variation in benefit-risk response to nutrients. In 2004 a European Union-funded network of excellence in the area of nutrigenomics (European Nutrigenomics Organisation; NuGO) organised a workshop on the role of nutrient-gene interactions in determining benefit-risk of nutrients and diet. The major issues discussed at the workshop are presented in the present paper and highlighted with examples from the presentations. The overall consensus was that although genetics provides a new vision where genetic information could in the future be used to provide knowledge on disease predisposition and nutritional requirements, such a goal is still far off and much more research is required before we can reliably include genetic factors in the risk-benefit assessment of nutrients and diets.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cell and Molecular Biosciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. j.e.hesketh@ncl.ac.uk
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hesketh
authors.forename: Iwona
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Wybranska
authors.forename: Yvonne
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dommels
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: Ruan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Elliott
authors.forename: Catalina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pico
authors.forename: Jaap
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keijer
mesh_terms: D004032:Diet; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D014644:Genetic Variation; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D018570:Risk Assessment