We are all unique.
Put a thousand people on the same weight-loss diet, and youll see a range of outcomes.
Science still cant tell us why some people lose weight more easily than others.
Maybe we each have our own ideal diet, and we just have to find it.
Perhaps the key to whos who lies in our DNA.
Scientists are constantly finding links between genetics and nutrition.
For example,Inuit people from Greenland have genesthat may help their bodies process their cultures traditional high-fat diet.
But the sales pitch is just so tempting.
And why stop at just one gene?
But the sales pitch is just so tempting.
(Habit uses DNA results together with bloodwork to give nutrition advice and sell meal plans.)
I believe in 2017 its going to be the era of you.
The era of personalization.
But there are limits to what we can learn by looking inside ourselves.
Youll find out which variant you have at each of those locations along your DNA strands.
The locations themselves are known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs (pronounced snips).
SNPs are a handy, well-studied shortcut for genetic variations.
Then you’re free to authorize a partner companysay, DNAFitto ask Helix for some of your SNPs.
Helix charges $80 for their one-time sequencing fee.
The service, dubbed EmbodyDNA,currently sells for $109.
On a lucky day, you might even get your sequencing fee waived too.
I had sent him screenshots of my results before the call.
And I think you areyoure definitely more just predisposed to normal levels.
In other words, my results were boring.
EmbodyDNAis the name of Lose Its genetic testing product.
I can view my results in a special screen on the app, separate from the calorie-counting functions.
There are 19 results in total, with five relating specifically to weight loss.
As far as I know, thats all true.
Only two of my results felt surprising enough to be potentially useful.
One said I was likely to lose weight with exercise.
So is everybody, perhaps.
But typically,exercise plays a very small role in weight loss for most people.
Your genes give you an extra edge in meeting your weight loss goals, the app told me.
According to this result, it sounds like I should opt for endurance activities over sprinting.
The problem is I know that conclusion is wrong.
I get terrible results in long-distance races, and generally hate every minute of them.
But Iloveto sprint, and my times are always surprisingly good for a person of my fitness level.
Theres no doubt in my mind that Im a sprinter.
So I looked up the science behind this.
My result was based on just one SNP,rs1815739.
Plenty of factors, biological and otherwise, contribute to athletic performance.
), and much more.
Sure, why not?
EmbodyDNA says Im at average risk.
Arivale says Im likely to gain weight if my diet contains saturated fat.
EmbodyDNA says saturated fat is unlikely to affect my BMI.
EmbodyDNA says low-fat diets are unlikely to impact my BMI.
Both agreed that exercise is likely to affect my weight-loss results, but each phrases this differently.
Arivale implies my result is a bad thing: Im likely to gain weight if Im sedentary.
But EmbodyDNA gives it a positive spin, claiming physical activity is likely to help me lose weight.
Both agreed that I am probably sensitive to bitter tastes.
And both agreed that I am not particularly sensitive to the taste of sugar.
EmbodyDNA uses your food tracking data to make automatic recommendations in the app.
For example, people who are sensitive to bitter tastes tend not to like certain vegetables, like kale.
Arivale offers a coaching call with a registered dietitian to help make sense of the results.
In the end, her recommendations seemed pretty solid.
Eat more vegetablesbecause Im sensitive to bitter tastes, I need to see to it Im not avoiding vegetables.
Her recommendations were solidly within standard dietary advice, so there was nothing that felt too weirdly extrapolated.
But then I realizedwe could have had pretty much the same conversationwithoutthe DNA results.
Erin Cernkovich-Barrett, a scientist at Habit, says the company never uses genetics alone to give weight-loss advice.
She sums up the approach by saying, DNA is just part of your story.
Or they should be eating cupcakes and they didnt know it.
Or they really should be eating chocolate chip cookies to lose weight and they didnt know it.
The SNPs tested in the trial werers1801282,rs1042714, andrs1799883.
Alas, it did not work out.
We didnt just do some random thing.
We put some thought into it.
Theyre horrendously expensive; nobody is going to fund 999,999 such trials.
The company scientists and representatives I spoke with for this piece seem to understand that.
(Helix, LoseIt/EmbodyDNA, and Habit granted interviews.
DNAFit sent a detailed statement.
(Then again, you could just step on a scale.)
Less than one pound.
And this is supposed to be my key to weight loss?
Its one of the best-studied genes in this field, and its a biggie.
That gift can be reduced by exercise or by changes in diet, which sounds promising.
Exercise only tweaks FTOs contribution by roughly 30 percentfrom one kilogram per allele to 700 grams.
Less than one pound.
And this is supposed to be my key to weight loss?
Loos thinks the companies are overreaching.
It actually annoys me when people use these types of studies to translate that into prediction.
Technically, they dont.
But they arent allowed to predict outcomes unless there is research that validates the recommendation.
When it comes to weight loss, that level of research just doesnt exist.
We also dont even know what many of those genes are doing inside our body.
Ideally, genetics research would draw its data from people from all across the globe.
But until thats the case, anybody who is underrepresented in the studies may be getting less reliable results.
Ethnicity is another problem for any proposed link between genetics and diet.
Maybe theres a gene associated with a certain SNP, and that gene causes a disease.
In one population, that might be the whole story.
But in another population, people might commonly have a totally different gene that protects against that same disease.
This could hide the effect the first gene has on the disease, making it appear not to matter.
The world around it’s possible for you to make a genes effects more or less noticeable.
For example, a gene called MTHFR affects how well our bodies use a vitamin called folate.
Ideally, genetics research would draw its data from people from all across the globe.
But until thats the case, anybody who is underrepresented in the studies may be getting less reliable results.
But what do we do in the meantime?
Its just taking advantage of a business opportunityselling your typical recommendations in sort of a more innovative package.
How to Use Genetic Data (If You Want To)
First, dont trust it.
That means your results are good for two things.
The first is that they can be a gateway to healthier habits.
(After all,any diet works if you stick to it.)
Like, you oughta exercise more and eat less.
So its just taking advantage of a business opportunityselling your typical recommendations in sort of a more innovative package.
The other way to use your results is for your own curiosity and perhaps kick off a one-person experiment.
Im all fornof one studies, Gardner says, referring to the statistic for thenumber of participantsin a trial.
In other words, self-experimentation.
Try [the recommended eating pattern], and then stop doing it, he suggests.
Or try the opposite and see if it doesnt work.
Keep notes and draw your own conclusions.
(Gardner might also like to study self-experimenters in the future.
If this is you, get in touch with him at[email protected].)
Either way, youll have to treat your genetic results as something akin to a horoscope.
Pick out the parts that feel right and embrace them; then quickly forget the rest.
And in personalized nutritionas in lifebase your decisions on more than one source of information.
