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Following in the footsteps of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Dr. Paula Saukko at Exeter University will be conducting a study funded by the Wellcome Trust to see how nutrigenomic tests are marketed and come up with some recommendations as to how these tests should be regulated.
Dr Paula Saukko:
In the USA there are claims you can make your children more intelligent by tailoring their diet according to their genetic make-up. There is also the ‘DNA diet’, which claims you can lose weight, tone up and even live longer by following advice based on analysis of your DNA. These tests are available over the internet so there’s nothing to stop the British public from buying them also.
Nothing to stop people except common sense and logic. If you’ve got the spare cash lying around for a nutrigenetic test, why not? Just treat it with as much skepticism as you would any other vitamin supplement or magazine quiz on health.
More at Guardian Unlimited.
Tags: nutrigenetics, nutrigenomics, nutritional genetics, genetic testing, dna tests, wellcome trust, paula saukko, genetics, genes, dna, diet
I am not a geneticist (correct spelling even?), but is there not a case for some kind of risk management based upon the genetic make up of an individual?
Surely if someone’s dna indicated that they had a higher chance of developing a form a cancer, say, or some other disease, then the medical profession could work with the individual to minimise that risk.
I fully understand the reasoning undermining slimming advice based upon a dna test, but surely if the medical and genetics professions worked in tandem then a benefit is available?
Lisa: You mean there’s no magic pill? Man, I’m soooo disappointed. :P
“Nothing to stop people except common sense and logic.” You bet! And yet we so often suspend our critical thinking to embrace a magic pill or diet that will solve our problems effortlessly. Because DNA is sexy and hip, it’s garnering a lot of attention. So I think people like you, me, and those researchers at Exeter University will need to protect it’s reputation a little while longer ;-)