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23/1/15 Personalised Nutrition – is this the way forward?

Personalised Nutrition – What is the right diet for you?

Health concerns such as obesity, diabetes and alzheimers disease are placing an unsustainable burden on our healthcare systems, systems which are based on treating sick people rather than preventing illness.

Personalised health science nutrition has the opportunity to offer a compelling and cost effective solution to many of today’s chronic and acute medical conditions and diseases.

Nutritional genomics, or nutrigenomics, is the study of how foods affect our genes and how individual genetic differences can affect the way we respond to nutrients (and other naturally occurring compounds) in the foods we eat.

The practical application of nutritional genomics for complex chronic disease is an emerging science and the use of nutrigenetic testing to provide dietary advice is not ready for routine dietetics practice.

However nutrigenomics is a fast and emerging science and one which is growing rapidly.

Check out the Horizon Special TV Programme on BBC Iplayer.

In a ground-breaking national experiment – the first of its kind – Dr Chris Van Tulleken and clinical psychologist Professor Tanya Byron, together with Britain’s foremost nutrition and weight loss scientists from Oxford and Cambridge universities, put the latest theory to the test. They’ve selected 75 overweight volunteers from across the UK who will be put on personalised diets to explore three particular causes of overeating: genes, gut hormones, and emotion-related eating.

Can science succeed, where other diets have failed?

Packed full of science tips and general diet advice, the programme offers credible, useful information for everyone.

Viewers at home can also find out which diet might be right for them by trying the online diet test, available from January 12 at bbc.co.uk/rightdiet.

This unique television experiment is led by a team of world class scientists: from Oxford University, Professor of diet and population Susan Jebb, and Professor of behavioural medicine Paul Aveyard; and from Cambridge University, geneticist Dr Giles Yeo; and gut hormone specialist Professor Fiona Gribble.

BBC Horizon Special