Will Biotechnology And Nutrigenomics Make An Important Difference To Health Of The Public?

Observation

The principles of public health nutrition have gone widely unchanged for the past fifty years. The aim of public health nutrition has been to “develop population based strategies to promote good health through healthy diets”. Public health nutrition has the potential for improvement by incorporating the human genome in conjunction with nutrigenomics in order to “improve health and to increase food availability, accessibility and utilization”.

The main and detailed question

Will “biotechnology and nutrigenomics make an important difference to health of the public”.

Hypothesis

If “public health nutrition, among other objectives, seeks to reduce global and household food insecurity, then an improvement to the quality of diets and prevention and control of nutritionally-related diseases” need to be addressed.

How was the hypothesis tested

The hypothesis first began to be tested and gave rise to the ‘Green Revolution’ in the 1960’s when the world could no longer adequately “cope with the food population balance.” The ‘Green Revolution’ brought about “new grain varieties by plant breeding, development of irrigation facilities, the availability of inorganic fertilizers, and new government policies”. The food of choice to plant breed was rice, and came with positive results. “The new rice varieties produced 5-7t unmilled rice per hectare versus 1-3 t per hectare for conventional varieties, with a six fold increase in wheat production in Asia”. Due to the ‘Green Revolution’, “malnutrition fell from 46.5% to 31% between 1965 and 1995”. Although the ‘Green Revolution’ was a success, it would not last for long. With the continued growth of the population and “drastic slow down in the expansion of cereal production, legumes, and coarse grains”, the world again faced worldwide starvation with simultaneous inadequate nutritional intake. It was needed to take another leap forward in the fight against starvation and nutrition; greater use of genetically modified foods was then the next big idea. “Increasing crop yields through genetic modification, either by plant breeding or by introducing genetic material from other organisms”, will come from land under cultivation. The under cultivation of the land can be due to “elemental deficiencies, high salinity or being too dry”.

Another way the hypothesis was tested in conjunction with genetically modified foods, was with the modification of tomatoes. The project is in early stages but the idea is the development of new plants that will grow in soil with a high salinity content. A genetically enhanced potato was grown in India by adding a gene from the amaranth plant that increased the availability of protein in the new potato strand. This was a seen as a slight success because although the added nutritional content is not likely to make an impact on one's health, the potatoes are consumed “by the very poor and therefore any increase in additional nutrition is welcomed”.

Another way in which the hypothesis was tested was in the notion of the micronutrient content of diets. “Micronutrients could be improved, as deficiencies in quality, even more so than quantity, are more likely to occur in the diets of those living in poverty “. This was done so by looking at the staple foods of the poorest families, and “increasing minerals and vitamins...by conventional plant breeding; increase minerals and vitamins by gene introduction...increase enhancing compounds that increase bioavailability”. Through the use of genetic modification of foods, there have been ample staple food varieties that offer more nutrition per serving than the original product. An example of this was ‘golden rice.’ ‘Golden rice’ was produced due to “four new enzymes being introduced from the daffodil and Erwina uredova to produce beta carotene in the rice grain”. This new breed of rice opened a new avenue for the introduction of essential vitamins such as zinc, and iron to be added to “maize and cassava genotypes through plant breeding”. A final way in which the hypothesis was tested that will be examined here is the “burden of chronic non-communicable diseases [rising] worldwide”. “The roles of phenotype and the environment are widely accepted, along with physical activity, as important in the development of chronic disease.” Along with the availability of high energy, low nutritional content of food, the human population continues to move towards a more sedentary lifestyle. Due to these facts there has been a widespread increase of obesity in many nations.

Through the use of “genomic and nutritional genomic approaches...the identification, by positional cloning...lead to the discovery of the previously unknown protein, leptin, and its receptors”. This study found that “leptin provides a direct signal from the adipose tissue to the brain and also led to the identification of white adipose tissue as an endocrine organ”. This mutation of leptin alongside with genotype, lifestyle, and lack of exercise has made obesity an epidemic that has lead to “79% of deaths attributed to non-communicable diseases...occurring in developing countries, predominantly middle aged men”. It has been predicted that by “2020, the global burden of chronic disease is expected to increase to 57% of all disease”.

What were the results of the experiment

There were many results that were obtained over the course of the life of genetically modified foods and its impact on nutrition and malnutrition. As a whole, it was found that this scientific paper concluded that nutrigenomics is many years away from being able to solve the food hunger crisis and widespread malnutrition alongside with non-communicable diseases. Results may be seen in ‘designer diets’ although these may only be readily available for those who can afford to seek screening and medical attention. The world needs to come together as a whole to combat the growing rate of malnutrition. The notion of genetically modified food as helping solve the world hunger crisis has its limits, and they may have already been reached. This is so because “limits to expanding food supplies”, animal, progress to plant modification is slow since most of it has been completed already. When it comes to preventing chronic disease, we are no closer to solving this problem than the hunger problem. There are many things working against the human population, such as sedentary lifestyle, availability of high energy low nutritional foods, genes, and environment that is leading to a rise in chronic disease. So it goes to say, that the world as a whole is still years away from making any real impact on the global hunger crisis and fight against chronic non-communicable disease.

The results do seem very reliable

We trust this analysis since it analyzes a significant amount of time. Both of us liked the fact that data used goes back to 1965 to closer times. There is not enough food for everyone as some do not have access to much therefore the food they do have access to should be equipped with nutrition as the one they are receiving is not healthy and lacks many important minerals and vitamins needed in the body. The null hypothesis can be rejected since there is still time as the food industry as well as the science industry is forever changing in which case one day we will be able to pack food with everything in nutrition value that is needed regardless of money and social position.

The paper does a great job of presenting the research that was done. This investigation does a great job of trying to put together a world-wide vision: to abolish hunger while being healthy. It points out the many flaws while trying to encourage any way to have hope that it will be done in the near future since we have many advancements in science and technology yet to reach in order to solve hunger and health conditions. We have no additional propositions that may help solve hunger and the unhealthy aspects that can be prevented through nutrition.