Genes Influence What We Eat

Researchers discovered over 500 genes that appear to directly influence the foods we eat in one of the first large-scale investigations of diet-related genes. The findings are a significant step toward using a person’s DNA to build precision eating programs that promote health or prevent disease.

“Some genes we identified are related to sensory pathways—including those for taste, smell, and texture—and may also increase the reward response in the brain,” said research team leader Joanne Cole, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

“Because some of these genes may have clear paths toward influencing whether someone likes a food or not, they could potentially be used to create sensory genetic profiles for fine-tuning a person’s dietary recommendations based on foods they like to eat.”

The researchers conducted a phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) using data from 500,000 participants from the UK Biobank to identify genes that were more strongly related with diet than with any other health or lifestyle factor. PheWAS investigations are used to discover relationships between gene variants of interest and a wide range of human traits and behaviors, including food intake.

“The foods we choose to eat are largely influenced by environmental factors such as our culture, socioeconomic status, and food accessibility,” said Cole. “Because genetics plays a much smaller role in influencing dietary intake than all the environmental factors, we need to study hundreds of thousands of individuals to detect genetic influences amid the environmental factors. The data necessary to do this hasn’t been available until recently.”

Cole will present the findings at NUTRITION 2023, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, which will be held in Boston from July 22-25.

One difficulty in discovering diet-related genes is that what people eat corresponds with a variety of other characteristics, including health problems like high cholesterol or body weight, as well as socioeconomic status. The researchers used computational approaches to differentiate direct effects of genetic polymorphisms on food from indirect effects, such as when a gene affects diabetes and having diabetes compels a person to eat less sugar.

This study design was made possible by the UK Biobank, which has not only extensive genetic information but also detailed health and socioeconomic data. The researchers were able to analyze individual genetic variants for connections with thousands of variables, and then reject indirect gene variants that were more strongly connected with other factors, such as diabetes.

The study discovered roughly 300 genes that are directly linked to eating specific foods and over 200 genes that are tied to dietary patterns that group numerous meals together, such as overall fish intake or fruit consumption.

“The study showed that dietary patterns tend to have more indirect genetic effects, meaning they were correlated with a lot of other factors,” said Cole. “This shows how important it is to not study dietary patterns in a vacuum, because the eating pattern’s impact on human health may be completely mediated or confounded by other factors.”

In the immediate term, Cole is researching the newly discovered diet-related genes to better understand their function, while also looking for more genes that influence food preferences. Based on these discoveries, she hopes to pursue various areas of translational research. For example, she is curious about whether using a person’s genetics to alter the flavor profile of a weight loss diet could boost adherence.

It might also be possible to use these new insights to tailor foods to a person’s genetic predisposition. “If we know that a gene encoding an olfactory receptor in the nose increases a person’s liking of fruit and boosts the reward response in the brain, then molecular studies of this receptor could be used to identify natural or synthetic compounds that bind to it,” Cole said. “Then, we could see if adding one of those compounds to healthy foods makes those foods more appealing to that person.”

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