The recognition that nutrients have the ability to interact and modulate molecular mechanisms underlying an organism's physiological functions has prompted a revolution in the field of nutrition. The creation of nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics, two fields with distinct approaches to elucidate the interaction between diet and genes but with a common ultimate goal to optimize health through the personalization of diet, provide powerful approaches to unravel the complex relationship between nutritional molecules, genetic polymorphisms (variations), and the biological system as a whole.
Nutrigenomics aims to determine the influence of common dietary ingredients on the genome and attempts to relate the resulting different phenotypes to differences in the cellular and/or genetic response of the biological systems. Nutrigenetics, on the other hand, aims to study how the genetic makeup of an individual coordinates their response to diet and thus considers underlying genetic polymorphisms- Lecturer : emmauel uhuo