That’s a very impressive-looking shop window, but I had difficulty finding substance, even in what they say they are going to do. Here is the only place I could find any science, and it’s no more than a few very well-known and clear-cut examples of gene/diet interaction, and a promise of more. Here are the Aims and Objectives and here the Expected Outcomes, and, well, I realise that’s the sort of Eurospeak one must write for an EU Framework project (I speak from experience), but according to that page it’s been going a year already, and I don’t see even a schedule of deliverables.
I looked at their list of members and thought “cat-herding” (speaking from experience again), then looked on their contact page and at last found a real scientist doing real science. The head of the project is Mike Gibney at University College Dublin. As I know nothing about nutrition, it would be presumptuous for me to say much more than that if you’re interested in nutrition, his blog looks well worth reading.
Mike’s blog is definitely worth reading—the recent post on salt is particularly pertinent. Often when talking about nutrition and genetics the question is “why do we need it”? We know how to eat well, just have a balanced diet, physical activity etc. Well there are at least two answers to that
1) King Cnut—the tide is coming in and nothing will stop it. Yes we have zillions of healthy eating gospels. We have more “weight loss” aids and foods than ever before, we have apps, web sites, gadgets and pills, all designed for healthy eating and weight loss, and yet...
2) As Mike’s blog shows, the apparently “solid” evidence for nutritional dogma is quite shaky. I also discuss this in various posts on my blog (http://eurogene.blogspot.com)
There are quite a few well studied gene-environment interactions that can be exploited, there is evidence that genetic information improves motivation to change behaviour as well.
These are some of the aspects of the food4me project which we will be looking at in a proof of principle study (in 8 countries with about 1300 subjects). Agreed there is not a lot of detail yet on the site—it’s a large project, many partners (and in all such EU projects there are some stray cats to herd) - but work is proceeding and we should be seeing some early publications soon, they are in the works
That’s a very impressive-looking shop window, but I had difficulty finding substance, even in what they say they are going to do. Here is the only place I could find any science, and it’s no more than a few very well-known and clear-cut examples of gene/diet interaction, and a promise of more. Here are the Aims and Objectives and here the Expected Outcomes, and, well, I realise that’s the sort of Eurospeak one must write for an EU Framework project (I speak from experience), but according to that page it’s been going a year already, and I don’t see even a schedule of deliverables.
I looked at their list of members and thought “cat-herding” (speaking from experience again), then looked on their contact page and at last found a real scientist doing real science. The head of the project is Mike Gibney at University College Dublin. As I know nothing about nutrition, it would be presumptuous for me to say much more than that if you’re interested in nutrition, his blog looks well worth reading.
Mike’s blog is definitely worth reading—the recent post on salt is particularly pertinent. Often when talking about nutrition and genetics the question is “why do we need it”? We know how to eat well, just have a balanced diet, physical activity etc. Well there are at least two answers to that
1) King Cnut—the tide is coming in and nothing will stop it. Yes we have zillions of healthy eating gospels. We have more “weight loss” aids and foods than ever before, we have apps, web sites, gadgets and pills, all designed for healthy eating and weight loss, and yet...
2) As Mike’s blog shows, the apparently “solid” evidence for nutritional dogma is quite shaky. I also discuss this in various posts on my blog (http://eurogene.blogspot.com)
There are quite a few well studied gene-environment interactions that can be exploited, there is evidence that genetic information improves motivation to change behaviour as well.
These are some of the aspects of the food4me project which we will be looking at in a proof of principle study (in 8 countries with about 1300 subjects). Agreed there is not a lot of detail yet on the site—it’s a large project, many partners (and in all such EU projects there are some stray cats to herd) - but work is proceeding and we should be seeing some early publications soon, they are in the works