Nutrigenomics and Can Nutrition Influence Genetic Predispositions?

Nutrigenomics is the science of the impact of nutrition on health. Why are we so persistent and sometimes strenuous when it comes to the importance of nutrition in dogs? The answer is really simple. Because diet can really influence whether a disease for which a dog has a genetic predisposition will actually appear or not. Nutrigenomics is a science that is being talked about and written about more and more lately. That we are all born with certain genes is a well-known fact. But the external influences on every living organism are by no means negligible.

What can we as dog owners influence the most? The simplest and at the same time the most effective way we can influence two very important things:

• one is nutrition,
• the other is physical activity

Both are solely in our hands . We are the ones who put food in the dogs' bowls and we are the ones who decide when and for how long the dog will run. Well, when that's the case, we have a huge responsibility if we want our dog to be healthy, to have an excellent quality of life and to be with us as long as possible.
Nutrigenomics is a science that deals with the study of the connection between nutrition and genetics.
It has been established that diet cannot influence gene changes, but gene expression can be influenced. In very simplified terms, the genome of each individual is a huge amount of good and bad information, and diet can influence which information will spread. It is customary to say that it is genetics, there is nothing you can do about it! Nutrigenomics proves that this is not quite the case.

How are nutrition and genetics connected?

They are connected through the epigenome. The DNA molecule, the molecule that contains all the genetic material of an individual, is surrounded by a coat called the epigenome. By changing gene expression, the epigenome changes the fate of the cell, determines what kind of cell it will be, whether the cell will be a heart, brain, skin cell... what proteins will be produced in the cell, whether the cell, i.e. the organism, will be healthy or diseased.

The epigenome actively changes under the influence of various stimuli from the environment, and nutrition plays a very important role in these changes. So unlike our genome, we can positively influence the epigenome by choosing the optimal diet for the organism. Raw food is the best possible choice for dogs.
Besides that raw meat is the easiest for the dog's body to use, BARF does not contain any 'chemistry'. And the chemical compounds that are created by thermal processing of food as well as various additives adversely affect the epigenome and increase the possibility that a disease written in the genes will actually develop.