{"id":30,"date":"2007-09-26T11:49:09","date_gmt":"2007-09-25T23:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/09\/diet_and_your_genes\/"},"modified":"2007-09-26T11:49:09","modified_gmt":"2007-09-25T23:49:09","slug":"diet-and-your-genes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/09\/diet-and-your-genes\/","title":{"rendered":"Diet and your genes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font>Modern molecular biology has allowed us to look ever more closely into the genetic changes associated with human evolution.&nbsp;A recent research project&nbsp;used this technology to examine a possible relationship between diet and genome.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><font>We&#039;re accustomed to a diet high in starchy foods (potatoes, pasta, &amp; rice, for example). However, some populations of modern humans (eg Inuit)&nbsp;have traditionally eaten diets high in protein, with only small amounts of starch. Shadaf Shadan (2007) summarises the findings of a&nbsp;project that examined the relationship between dietary starch and the number of copies of a gene that codes for salivary amylase, the enzyme that digests starch. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font>People differ quite markedly in the number of copies of this gene, which is called <em>AMY1<\/em>. The researchers found that the&nbsp;extra copies were functional: the more copies an individual has, the more salivary amylase they produce.&nbsp;But is there any relationship between past diet and the number of copies of <em>AMY1<\/em>? And does having multiple copies of <em>AMY1<\/em> confer any selective advantage?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font>To answer the first&nbsp;question, the research team collected copy-number data from two groups of people. The first comprised four different populations with a diet low in starch, while the second was made up of three populations with high-starch diets. Both groups included people from Asia and Africa i.e. both contained people from different geographic areas. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font>The results? The high-starch group contained twice as many people with at least 6 copies of <em>AMY1<\/em>, compared to the low-starch group. This couldn&#039;t be explained by geographical differences, and the researchers concluded that the copy-number differences were the result of natural selection for a high <em>AMY1 <\/em>copy number. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font>And the selective advantage? The researchers suggested that s<\/font><font>omeone with more salivary amylase would be better able to digest starch while chewing their food, and thus maximise the amount of glucose available for absorption. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Reference: S. Shadan (2007) You are what you ate. <em>Nature<\/em> <strong>449<\/strong>: 155<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Modern molecular biology has allowed us to look ever more closely into the genetic changes associated with human evolution.&nbsp;A recent research project&nbsp;used this technology to examine a possible relationship between diet and genome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,13,2],"tags":[8,9,14,4],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Diet and your genes : BioBlog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/09\/diet-and-your-genes\/\" 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