The Hidden, or “Masking Effect” Explained 63provide metabolic pathways for disposing of chemical substances making
up the food (remember the outline of the many toxins that are to be found
in food, pages 18-22). There is also the backlash effect I mentioned early
on in Chapter 1, where eating certain foods can bring on a gene reaction,
whether good or bad.
We are all different. You take after your parents somewhat, but you
are unique because some of your genes will manifest and others will not (we
call this gene “expression”).
That explains why some people feel good on a particular diet and
others feel bad. The authors of these fad diets will not come clean and
tell you this happens – patients who report problems are just looked on
as freaks (or troublemakers). But now you know this is bound to happen.
Cutting edge science says it must.
Ironically, this new specialty of nutritional genomics came about
through studying idiosyncratic drug reactions. Some patients were being
hurt and even killed by drugs which didn’t seem to be threatening to the
majority of us. Over 100,000 people are year are killed by adverse drug
reactions in the US alone. Despite being diametrically opposed to the
unscrupulous drug industry I am prepared to concede they don’t like killing
their customers, if only because it costs big money and creates insurance
problems. But in fact the investigation of why some individuals respond in
a dramatically different way to the same substance led to the discovery of
the important of gene-mediated metabolic pathways.
Personalized medicine
We will soon all be speaking of what may be termed “personalized
medicine.”
The time will come when we will all be routinely tested for our
genomic profile and advised accordingly what substances (foods and
chemicals) are safe for us and what we should avoid. HRT may be great for
some women but drive others inexorably towards cancer and heart disease;
beta carotene may protect some people against cancer but can cause it in
others; vitamin A, taken as an immune booster can increase the chance of
susceptible women getting a hip fracture; decreasing blood homocysteine
levels with B vitamins actually causes more fatal heart conditions, despite
lowering the homocysteine levels; and so it goes on... Without the correct
gene profile in hand, doctors are, in effect, merely guessing which drugs to
administer and running a lottery on which patients will die and which will
live.