Abstract
In the days of James Cook and Christopher Columbus, humanity’s greatest dietary triumph was realizing that eating citrus fruits such as limes, lemons and oranges, as well as onions cured what seafarers called “scurvy”. Back in 1788 William Stark in England conducted a series of brilliant dietary experiments primarily on himself to better understand the sailors’ findings of scurvy prevention by eating fresh citrus fruits. Stark ultimately died of scurvy as he was attempting to reproduce the disease in himself [1]. Nearly all vitamins were discovered by combination of serendipity, good luck and careful early scientific observation [2]. Thus, the study of nutrition was born. Fast forward several hundred years to present day, where nutritionists now know that scurvy is caused by a deficiency in vitamin C. The field of nutrition has come far since its beginnings, yet the field is still far from utilizing food in its highest form: personalized nutrition. Yes, there have been blood type diets, paleo diets, low and high fat diets, and diets of every type scattered in between, but the most ideal form of personalized nutrition stems from a field that is only now emerging from the shadows – epigenetics.
Highlights
In the days of James Cook and Christopher Columbus, humanity’s greatest dietary triumph was realizing that eating citrus fruits such as limes, lemons and oranges, as well as onions cured what seafarers called “scurvy”
There have been blood type diets, paleo diets, low and high fat diets, and diets of every type scattered in between, but the most ideal form of personalized nutrition stems from a field that is only emerging from the shadows – epigenetics
Epigenetics refers to the modulation of gene expression, due to a variety of environmental and lifestyle-related factors [3]
Summary
In the days of James Cook and Christopher Columbus, humanity’s greatest dietary triumph was realizing that eating citrus fruits such as limes, lemons and oranges, as well as onions cured what seafarers called “scurvy”. Nutrigenomics is the study of how nutrition and dietary constituents cause an alteration in gene expression, resulting in differing outcomes [3]. While their genomes are identical at birth, scientists have shown that a variety of environmental, lifestyle and nutritional factors can alter the epigenome; altering the phenotypic outcome of individuals [7,8].
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