Nutrigenomics and You: How do Health Care Providers Feel About Using Your Genetics in Personalized Nutrition?

Most people are familiar with the phrase “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

While obviously not literal, it goes without saying that a healthy diet plays an important role in long-term health. But for those trying to navigate nutrition in everyday life, there are more opinions and information surrounding nutrition than you can shake a stick at.

One up-and-coming area in nutrition is the incorporation of nutrigenomics. Nutrigenomics is essentially a way to personalize nutrition and tailor recommendations on the types of foods that you may be better or worse at metabolizing, based on your genes. This information can help guide which foods you should be incorporating into your diet, and the types of foods you may want to cut back on.

So, if nutrition plays a key role in long term health, and your genes may help personalize your diet, why is it not more widely used in preventative medicine?

According to Dr. Justine Keathley of the Human Health and Nutritional Sciences department, the answer may lie at the frontlines of healthcare. She wanted to find out how different types of frontline care providers — including dietitians, doctors, fitness coaches and others — perceive the use of nutrigenomics in preventative medicine.

Keathley and colleagues surveyed almost 500 care providers across Canada for their insights. Unsurprisingly, they found that many respondents felt very positive about incorporating nutrigenomics into their practice, with about 20% already doing so. However, significant barriers perceived by care providers included the overall impression that it is a complicated process to integrate nutrigenomics into practice and not knowing much about the field as a whole.

“By and large, the reason why many care providers aren’t integrating nutritional genomics into daily practice is because care providers perceive the process as being too complicated,” says Keathley.

Getting a client’s genetic information is quite simple. Swab the inside of the cheek, send it to a company that provides the service, and done. The part that may be perceived as complicated comes when the results are in.

There are limited tools available to help care providers interpret nutrigenomics for direct use in preventative medicine. And companies that provide these results aren’t regulated to abide by standards of scientific validity. That means care providers are often left to interpret the results and do their own research to understand their legitimacy.

“There is limited regulation of the scientific validity in the consumer genetics space, which creates variability between companies in what they report. The average person won’t know this,” explains Keathley. “Consumer nutrigenetics is operating on a ‘buyer beware’ basis. Some companies provide tests with strong scientific evidence, whiles others — not so much.”

The interactions between genes and nutrition require very nuanced conversations. It takes significant background knowledge to wade through the sea of information currently available.

It is also important to note that there are two types of care providers in the nutritional sciences space. There are regulated providers, such as registered dietitians and medical doctors, but there are also unregulated providers, such as homeopaths and fitness professionals. With regulated professionals, there are rigorous standards of care and patient advice that must be followed.

And while care providers typically undergo extensive training in their specific field, the amount of training specific to nutrition and nutrigenomics is highly variable. So even regulated providers may receive little formal training in this area.

This is why applying nutrigenomics in clinical practice can feel overwhelming. With the sheer volume of studies published, it takes time to understand the science and how to apply it to a client’s real life. For care providers with limited background in nutrition, this is enough to deter them from using it in daily practice.

Keathley hopes the study will provide a starting point for developing educational tools for care providers to interpret nutrigenomic results. Eventually, the goal is to develop standardized guidelines for clinical practice, and resources for care providers interested in using nutrigenomics in their practice.

Taking it one step further, Keathley explains, “Many studies have suggested that registered dietitians should be the care providers offering this specialized service.”

“This paper is a call to action for the research community,” states Keathley. “With tens of thousands of studies, we need to start summarizing overarching concepts and determining what might or might not be ready for clinical practice.”

Nutrigenomics is being praised by many as a powerful defense against chronic disease. Perhaps one day, using your genes, you’ll be able to find out if indeed an apple a day will help keep the doctor away.

Read this study in Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research.

Read about other CBS Research Highlights.