Nutrigenomics is a branch of nutritional genomics and is the study of the effects of foods and food constituents on gene expression. This means that nutrigenomics is research focusing on identifying and understanding molecular-level interaction between nutrients and other dietary bioactives with the genome. Nutrigenomics has also been described by the influence of genetic variation on nutrition, by correlating gene expression or SNPs with a nutrient’s absorption, metabolism, elimination or biological effects. By doing so, nutrigenomics aims to enhance rational means to optimise nutrition with respect to the subject’s genotype.
By determining the mechanism of the effects of nutrients or the effects of a nutritional regime, nutrigenomics tries to define the causality or relationship between these specific nutrients and specific nutrient regimes (diets) on human health. Nutrigenomics has been associated with the idea of personalized nutrition based on genotype. While there is hope that nutrigenomics will ultimately enable such personalised dietary advice, it is a science still in its infancy and its contribution to public health over the next decade is thought to be major.  Whilst nutrigenomics is aimed at developing an understanding of how the whole body responds to a food via systems biology, research into the effect of a single gene/single food compound relationships is known as nutrigenetics.
Rationale and aims
Cell signaling is an important component of regulation of gene expression and metabolism, relying on both internal and external signals to ensure the body is maintaining homeostasis. Individual nutrients can each be considered signals, with the summation of their effects being the diet. The effort of nutrigenomics is to identify this “dietary signature”, or pattern of effects ranging from effects at the cellular level to entire body systems.  However it is often hard to monitor the diet of an individual, and current protocols should be improved.The desired outcome from this type of research is to identify genetic factors for chronic diseases and conditions, whether it be a certain gene itself or an epigenetic marker, and how foods influence it. Nutrigenomics looks mainly to be a way of identifying individuals predisposed for conditions and preventing onset. First, genes with regulation influenced must be identified, and then more focused studies may emerge.
In addition, nutrigenomics also looks to identify certain compounds that are bioactive, and other foods that are of particular benefit to health. This knowledge can be personalized to produce specific diet plans and functional foods to both prevent predisposed conditions and maximize health.
