Are you fat in your genes?

Quite a while back I wrote an article outlining how today's morbidly obese may have descended from the survivors of yesteryear.

In other words people who were good at conserving calories my have had a genetic advantage to pass on their genetic material to their kids.

If you think about it we are really only 2 or 3 generations removed from a time when hunger and food shortages were a major problem for a large number of people in this country, not to mention others where it still is.

Take away that pressure and provide an abundance of food in a quick easy affordable manner and what do you get?

A nation of fat people.

This is an oversimplification of course but it brings up the topic of gene mapping which is fast becoming a reality.

Pretty soon for a hefty fee of course you will be able to walk into you doctor's office or some doctors office at least and order a map of some of the most important factors that lead to diseases like obesity, heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure and others.

You may also be able to see which medications and food will help you best.
Hint: fish oil will be a big one for almost everyone.

While I applaud this new direction I wonder if it may not go the way of the PSA for prostate cancer or the AMAS - Anti-malignin antibody screen test.

While each of these can be useful if used properly neither of them have lived up to the hopes of clinicians.

There is also the issue of whether or not gene mapping will be able to take into account something called penetrance.

This simply means that just because you have a gene for something doesn't mean that you will have complete or any expression of that gene, In the long run the field of nutragenomics looks much more promising and much more affordable for most of us.

This is the study of how supplements and foods affect your genes.

If you have a bad gene you might well be able to turn it off and keep it off while boosting better ones.

I know this much things like fish oil and Boost will be leading the way.

Why wait for the future? Go to where the action is.

Pharmaceutical Grade fish oil

Cardio and Immune Boost

All the best,

Dr Dave