Effect of a Nutrigenetic Intervention on Blood Lipid Markers and Body Composition of Adults With Overweight and Obesity

Obesity is defined as the accumulation of excessive fat, attributed to the maintenance of a positive energy imbalance between calorie intake and expenditure. Obesity contributes to the development of many comorbidities such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and dyslipidemias, among others. Dyslipidemias indicate a high concentration of lipids in the blood. Dyslipidemias cause more than 4 million premature deaths per year.

The pathogenesis of obesity is complex as it involves environmental, sociocultural, physiological, medical, behavioral, genetic, epigenetic, and many other factors. On the other hand, the causes of dyslipidemias can be: genetic / hereditary (primary dyslipidemias) or an inadequate lifestyle (secondary dyslipidemias).

Sufficient evidence indicates that lifestyle, mainly diet, plays a decisive role in the development of diseases such as obesity and dyslipidemias, in addition to that, recent research shows the importance of individual genetic predisposition to suffer from diseases. Data based on genome-wide association studies suggest a genetic predisposition for obesity and dyslipidemias with identification of various genes and genetic variations associated with these conditions. In this sense, the postulates of nutrigenetics as applied science are emphasized, since it states that food components can act on the human genome, directly or indirectly, to alter the expression of genes and gene products; diet can potentially compensate or accentuate the effects of genetic polymorphisms; and the consequences of a certain diet depend on the balance of health and disease states and the genetic background of an individual.

Therefore, when advising a change in diet and lifestyle as prevention and as part of the treatment for obesity and dyslipidemias, it is considered that a nutrigenetic intervention, that is, the administration of a diet designed according to genotypic characteristics and personal phenotypic, will have a much greater positive impact on the health status of people with detected genetic variations that make them susceptible to these pathologies.

For this reason, the implementation of nutrigenetic interventions could be a timely and successful avant-garde treatment to mitigate various cardiometabolic diseases such as dyslipidemias and others that are highly prevalent worldwide.