Towards a systems biology understanding of human health: interplay between genotype, environment and nutrition

Abstract

Sequencing of the human genome has opened the door to the most exciting new era for the holistic system description of human health. It is now possible to study the underlying mechanisms of human health in relation to diet and other environmental factors such as drugs and toxic pollutants. Technological advances make it feasible to envisage that in the future personalized drug treatment and dietary advice and possibly tailored food products can be used for promoting optimal health on an individual basis, in relation to genotype and lifestyle. Life-Science research has in the past very much focused on diseases and how to reestablish human health after illness. Today, the role of food and nutrition in human health and especially prevention of illness is gaining recognition. Diseases of modern civilization, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer have been shown to be effected by dietary patterns. The risk of disease is often associated with genetic polymorphisms, but the effect is dependent on dietary intake and nutritional status. To understand the link between diet and health, nutritional-research must cover a broad range of areas, from the molecular level to whole body studies. Therefore it provides an excellent example of integrative biology requiring a systems biology approach. The current state and implications of systems biology in the understanding of human health are reviewed. It becomes clear that a complete mechanistic description of the human organism is not yet possible. However, recent advances in systems biology provide a trajectory for future research in order to improve health of individuals and populations. Disease prevention through personalized nutrition will become more important as the obvious avenue of research in life sciences and more focus will need to be put upon those natural ways of disease prevention. In particular, the new discipline of nutrigenomics, which investigates how nutrients interact with humans, taking predetermined genetic factors into account, will mediate new insights into human health that will finally have significant positive impact on our quality of life.