Researchers find genes that might directly influence people’s food choices
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Key takeaways:
- A phenomewide association study revealed several hundred genes directly associated with food preferences.
- The findings, presented at NUTRITION 2023, have future implications for precision nutrition strategies.
BOSTON — Researchers have identified around 500 genes that directly influence the foods people eat.
In the future, they said, it might be possible to use a patient’s genetic predisposition toward certain foods to help tailor diets that are more appealing to them — another step toward precision nutrition.
“Some genes we identified are related to sensory pathways — including those for taste, smell and texture — and may also increase the reward response in the brain,” Joanne Cole, PhD, assistant professor in the department of biomedical informatics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said in a press release. “Because some of these genes may have clear paths toward influencing whether someone likes a food or not, they could potentially be used to create sensory genetic profiles for fine-tuning a person’s dietary recommendations based on foods they like to eat.”
Cole and colleagues analyzed data from UK Biobank, a prospective cohort of more than 500,000 adults in the United Kingdom that includes the genetic information of the participants. The researchers said they needed such a large pool of individuals because environmental factors like culture, socioeconomics and health status have a significant impact on people’s food preferences, making it difficult to determine the more subtle influences genetics can have on diet.
“The data necessary to do this hasn’t been available until recently,” Cole said.
The researchers conducted a phenomewide association study to tease apart gene variants with indirect effects on diet — such as those that govern the risk for diabetes, making it more likely that participants will change their eating habits, for example — from the genes that have a direct impact.
Cole and colleagues identified approximately 300 genes directly associated with eating specific foods and about 200 genes associated with dietary patterns, such as fish or fruit intake or alcohol consumption. Among those with the strongest effect were taste receptor genes (TAS2R38), olfactory receptor genes (OR10A6 and OR8U8) and genes that encode for digestive and metabolic enzymes, such as the AMY1A amylase gene.
Cole said in the release that they will research these genes to get a better sense of how they work and influence our food preferences. She also gave a specific example of how genomics can be applied to precision medicine strategies — another area the researchers would like to study.
“If we know that a gene encoding an olfactory receptor in the nose increases a person’s liking of fruit and boosts the reward response in the brain, then molecular studies of this receptor could be used to identify natural or synthetic compounds that bind to it,” Cole said. “Then, we could see if adding one of those compounds to healthy foods makes those foods more appealing to that person.”
References:
- Cole JB, et al. Identifying genes with direct biological effects on dietary intake to improve personalized nutrition. Presented at: NUTRITION; July 22-25, 2023.
- Researchers identify genes that directly influence what we eat. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/995549. Published July 22, 2023. Accessed July 19, 2023.
Perspective
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I find it exciting that the authors identified an association between dietary intake and genes for taste receptors and other pathways. However, I remain skeptical of the clinical impact of this because there are also strong sociocultural and psychological effects. Future studies including Mendelian randomization and intervention trials will help to better understand the clinical effect of these gene-diet interactions.
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