What we eat is full of hidden chemistry that will maintain the important thing to each illness and well being.
When the human genome was first sequenced in 2003, many believed this breakthrough would reveal the total origins of illness. But, genetics accounts for less than about 10% of total threat. The remaining 90% is formed by environmental components, with food plan taking part in a very vital function.
Globally, poor vitamin is estimated to contribute to roughly one in 5 deaths amongst adults over the age of 25. In Europe, dietary components alone are liable for practically half of all cardiovascular fatalities.
Regardless of a long time of public well being campaigns urging individuals to cut back fats, salt, and sugar, weight problems charges and diet-related ailments have continued to climb. Clearly, one thing is lacking from the way in which we take into consideration meals.
Past energy and vitamins
For a lot of contemporary historical past, vitamin has been described in simplified phrases, viewing meals primarily as gas and vitamins because the constructing blocks of the physique. Consideration has targeted on about 150 well-known chemical compounds comparable to proteins, fat, carbohydrates, and nutritional vitamins. Nevertheless, researchers now consider that the human food plan truly accommodates greater than 26,000 distinct compounds, nearly all of which stay largely unexplored.
Right here is the place astronomy supplies a helpful comparability. Astronomers know that darkish matter makes up about 27% of the universe. It doesn’t emit or mirror mild, and so it can’t be seen instantly however its gravitational results reveal that it should exist.
Diet science faces one thing comparable. The overwhelming majority of chemical compounds in meals are invisible to us when it comes to analysis. We devour them each day, however we’ve got little thought what they do.
Some specialists refer to those unknown molecules as “dietary darkish matter.” It’s a reminder that simply because the cosmos is crammed with hidden forces, our food plan is full of hidden chemistry.
When researchers analyze illness, they have a look at an unlimited array of meals, though any affiliation typically can’t be matched to recognized molecules. That is the darkish matter of vitamin – the compounds we ingest each day however haven’t been mapped or studied. Some might encourage well being, however others might enhance the danger of illness. The problem is discovering out which do what.
Foodomics as a brand new method
The sphere of foodomics goals to do precisely that. It brings collectively genomics (the function of genes), proteomics (proteins), metabolomics (cell exercise) and nutrigenomics (the interplay of genes and food plan).
These approaches are beginning to reveal how food plan interacts with the physique in methods far past energy and nutritional vitamins.
Take the Mediterranean food plan (crammed with fruits, greens, entire grains, legumes, nuts, olive oil, and fish, with restricted crimson meat and sweets), for instance, which is thought to scale back the danger of coronary heart illness.
However why does it work? One clue lies in a molecule referred to as TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide), produced when intestine micro organism metabolize compounds in crimson meat and eggs. Excessive ranges of TMAO enhance the danger of coronary heart illness. However garlic, for instance, accommodates substances that block its manufacturing. That is one instance of how food plan can tip the stability between well being and hurt.
Intestine microbes and meals chemistry
Intestine micro organism additionally play a significant function. When compounds attain the colon, microbes rework them into new chemical compounds that may have an effect on irritation, immunity and metabolism.
For instance, ellagic acid – found in various fruits and nuts – is converted by gut bacteria into urolithins. These are a group of natural compounds that help keep our mitochondria (the body’s energy factories) healthy.
This shows how food is a complex web of interacting chemicals. One compound can influence many biological mechanisms, which in turn can affect many others. Diet can even switch genes on or off through epigenetics – changes in gene activity that don’t alter DNA itself.
History has provided stark examples of this. For example, children born to mothers who endured famine in the Netherlands during the Second World War were more likely to develop heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and schizophrenia later in life. Decades on, scientists found their gene activity had been altered by what their mothers ate – or didn’t eat – while pregnant.
Mapping the hidden food universe
Projects such as the Foodome Project are now attempting to catalogue this hidden chemical universe. More than 130,000 molecules have already been listed, linking food compounds to human proteins, gut microbes and disease processes. The aim is to build an atlas of how diet interacts with the body, and to pinpoint which molecules really matter for health.
The hope is that by understanding nutritional dark matter, we can answer questions that have long frustrated nutrition science. Why do certain diets work for some people but not others? Why do foods sometimes prevent, and sometimes promote, disease? Which food molecules could be harnessed to develop new drugs, or new foods?
We are still at the beginning. But the message is clear – the food on our plate is not just calories and nutrients, but a vast chemical landscape we are only starting to chart. Just as mapping cosmic dark matter is transforming our view of the universe, uncovering nutritional dark matter could transform how we eat, how we treat disease and how we understand health itself.
Adapted from an article originally published in The Conversation.
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