You are a registered dietician nutritionist and your client has come for your ad
ID: 86771 • Letter: Y
Question
You are a registered dietician nutritionist and your client has come for your advice because they have completed a home DNA mutation kit (i.e. 23 and me) and discovered they are heterozygous for a gene variant that alters the function of a protein involved in carbohydrate (CHO) metabolism. They are very distressed because in some population studies this gene variant is linked with increased risk for cancer. The kit suggests they should adopt a high protein, low carbohydrate, moderate fat diet to mitigate their risk for cancer. Using the current best understanding of dietetics, nutrigenetics, and research, provide a rationale for whether they should or should not follow the advice of the kit
Explanation / Answer
No the advice of the kit should not be followed, because as the kit says to consume high protein,low carbohydrate and moderate fat it may increase the risk of cancer. The reason is:
1) The high protein diet can more likely increases the risk of cancer because high protein intake influences the levels of the growth hormone IGF-I, which not only affects the growth of healthy cells, but can also encourage cancer cell growth. So to reduce the risk of cancer you should avoid high protein diet and include low or moderate protein and try to involve wild fish as animal protein and mostly consume plant protein.
2) The low carbohydrate diet will surely reduce the risk of cancer because carbohydrate act as the food for cancer cells so if you reduce the carbohydrate content in your diet the cancer cells will starve and die that will reduce the risk of cancer.
3) Moderate fat diet may also help to reduce the risk of cancer until we consume healthy fat that may not increase the body weight becausr obesity is also the main reason for cancer.
Along with all this try to consume fresh fruits and vegetables and do some physical activity as well.
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