Nutritional Genomics

In nutrition, the diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual or culture makes when choosing what foods to eat. Although humans are omnivores, each culture holds some food preferences and some food taboos. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy. Proper nutrition requires the proper ingestion and equally important, the absorption of vitamins, minerals and fuel in the form of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Dietary habits and choices play a significant role in health and mortality. Throughout the 20th century, nutritional science focused on finding vitamins and minerals defining their use and preventing the deficiency diseases that they caused. In order to address the increasing incidence of these diet-related-diseases, the role of diet and nutrition has been and continues to be extensively studied.