Chapter 11: Nutrigenomics and Oral Health.

Abstract

The advent of the "genomic era" has allowed for nutrigenomics studies to be carried out, which aim to reveal whether there are interactions between the food we consume and our genetic make-up. In turn this information will provide the scientific basis for improved public health messages related to nutrition and diet. With the availability of high throughput, inexpensive and sometime "bed-side" technology, studies into the effect of diet on the aetiology of common oral diseases and oral conditions could now be easily carried out. It is becoming more and more convincing that interactions between genotype and diet are important in determining the risk of most if not all common complex diseases, and it is therefore highly probable that these interactions will be important in determining oral disease risk. A large body of data relating to nutritional genetic studies where the outcome measures have been markers of disease risk, provide proof of principle and highlight the importance of understanding these interactions, illustrating the potential impact dietary modification could have on oral health. These are areas of growth that need to be investigated further.