Foods that make our genes healthier
Can our genes tell us what to eat? Can we rework our genes to become healthier? Well, it seems genes speak. And how!
The fact is that good health starts with healthy cells. And ends with them too. So how healthy we are basically boils down to our genes.
But the general idea is that we are stuck with what we are born with, and so we can't do much about them.
Not true it seems.
A new line of science is showcasing that there are things one can do to make the most of what we are born with, and also actually even promote healthier genes.
Apparently, if we ask your genes what kinds of foods are best for our health, they would give a simple answer: one-third protein, one-third fat and one-third carbohydrates. Well, that's what genetic research by biologists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) says is the best recipe to limit your risk of most lifestyle-related diseases.
They have found that a diet with 65 per cent carbohydrates, which is often what most of us eat, causes a number of classes of genes to work overtime. "This affects not only the genes that cause inflammation in the body, but also genes associated with development of cardiovascular disease, some cancers, dementia, and type 2 diabetes - all the major lifestyle-related diseases," they write.
So the bottom line is: a healthy diet shouldn't be made up of more than one-third carbohydrates (up to 40 per cent of calories) in each meal, otherwise we stimulate our genes to initiate the activity that creates inflammation in the body leading to what the scientists call metabolic inflammation (where your skin is slightly redder, your body stores more water, you feel warmer, and you're not on top mentally).
Now that's clear gene speak!
But it doesn't stop here. As an even more advanced idea that certain key nutrient compounds from certain plants can help maintain and boost gene health has been gaining ground steadily. The idea is that while all plants deliver primary metabolites like proteins, carbohydrates, fibre and other major nutrients that help us stay healthy, they also have some secondary metabolites in high amounts which haven't been studied much till date.
These are the ones that apparently pump up the overall health of our genes.
Dr Dan Gueber, of Unicity International is very excited about the potential of metabolites and is working extensively in the field. We spoke recently when he was in the country and he believes strongly that while the human body is an amazing molecular machine, and one of the most important gifts we have been given in this life, it needs to be properly cared for.
"People go through their entire life without learning how to take care of their bodies, which is a prime reason why metabolic syndrome (the reason for most lifestyle diseases today) is running rampant throughout the world, including in India," he opined.
Can't help but agree. That is why I too spend a lot of time teaching people how to take care of their bodies first before getting into special diets et al. Strengthen the base first, other things will fall into place on their own.So how does this gene strengthening work?
Well, our body consists of approximately 20,000 genes, and they are responsible for catalysing thousands of chemical reactions our body performs every second.
Simply put: each of the genes in the body can be thought of as a chemical switch that turns ON or OFF different processes in the body. The disease state occurs when one or more of these chemical switches are broken and stuck in ON or OFF positions. Scientific research has shown that factors like sleep, exercise and even certain foods that we eat can help repair these broken chemical switches and restore balance to the body.
Dr Dan shares that there are more than 6,00,000 species of plants on the earth and less than five per cent of these have been studied for their bioactive compounds.
The plan is to look for new compounds in medicinal plants to study, identify and then incorporate them into our diet somehow.
For example, he shares that he has been studying a Polynesian traditional medicine plant, which is promising to be an excellent natural sleep aid. Similarly, a plant in Indonesia has been found to be excellent for maintaining healthy blood-glucose levels. Dr Dan is also studying several traditional medicine plants here in India, and is particularly interested in properties of triphala, which has been a mainstay of Ayurveda for ages now.
So you see we have known about nutrigenomics, the science that studies the interaction of dietary components with genes for a while, but it is only coming to the forefront now.
Time to feed our genes seriously.