Genetics to feature in treatment of diet-linked illnesses

A CHECK-UP in the future could involve getting a personalised genetic read-out for preventing and treating diet-related conditions like diabetes and heart disease. That's according to the co-ordinator of a major European study on diet, genetics and personalised nutrition, the findings of which will be unveiled in Dublin later this week.

"In 10 or 15 years' time I think people will go into their GP with a genetic profile and then get a prescription based on that. And in theory it will be more ethical because it will work better," said Helen Roche, associate professor of nutrigenomics at University College Dublin.

She and her colleague, Prof Mike Gibney, co-ordinated the five-year Lipgene project across 10 European centres to look at the interplay between genes and fat in the diet, and at food-related interventions to improve health.

It found that both a person's genetics and the quality of fat in their diet affect the "metabolic syndrome", a cluster of symptoms in overweight people that increases the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Their trial of 500 patients with the metabolic syndrome confirmed that a high intake of saturated fats worsened the condition, said Prof Roche. But replacing saturates in the diet with monounsaturated fats, found in olive oil, could improve the body's ability to respond to insulin and clear sugar from the blood.

"Monounsaturated fats tended to improve insulin sensitivity. It's quite subtle, an improvement of 10-15 per cent, but if you multiply that subtle effect by a population impact factor, that would be important," said Prof Roche.

Meanwhile, a low-fat diet supplemented with omega-3 fish oils could help improve the lipid profile of the patient's blood, and patients did not have to lose weight to see the benefits, she added. "This was a situation where people maintained their overweight state but they became more metabolically healthy."

The findings also highlighted gender differences in how patients responded to treatment, noted Prof Roche: "Women responded best to the diet for insulin sensitivity and men responded better on the lipid side, so it just shows that in a clinic you have to treat men and women differently."

Genes involved with inflammation appear to be linked with how a person's fat intake affects the metabolic syndrome, according to the study, but Prof Roche said more work remained to be done in the field of personalised nutrition.

"Different modes of intervention would be more appropriate for one type of person than another," she said. "But we haven't solved it all, far from it, there still is a huge knowledge gap," she said.

The Lipgene project also found that enriching animal feed with omega-3 fats could improve the fat profile of food, and represented a cost-effective way of addressing the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

The project's main scientific findings will be presented at a public meeting at UCD on Friday morning.

• See www.ucd.ie/lipgene