The good news in our DNA: Defects you can fix with vitamins and minerals

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news131645933.html#tab

What Rine and colleagues found and report this week in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is that there are many genetic differences that make people's enzymes less efficient than normal, and that simple supplementation with vitamins can often restore some of these deficient enzymes to full working order.

First author Nicholas Marini, a UC Berkeley research scientist, noted that physicians prescribe vitamins to "cure" many rare and potentially fatal metabolic defects caused by mutations in critical enzymes. But those affected by these metabolic diseases are people with two bad copies, or alleles, of an essential enzyme. Many others may be walking around with only one bad gene, or two copies of slightly defective genes, throwing their enzyme levels off slightly and causing subtle effects that also could be eliminated with vitamin supplements.

"Our studies have convinced us that there is a lot of variation in the population in these enzymes, and a lot of it affects function, and a lot of it is responsive to vitamins," Marini said. "I wouldn't be surprised if everybody is going to require a different optimal dose of vitamins based on their genetic makeup, based upon the kind of variance they are harboring in vitamin-dependent enzymes."

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Most scientists think that harmful mutations are disfavored by evolution, but Rine pointed out that this applies only to mutations that affect reproductive fitness. Mutations that affect our health in later years are not efficiently removed by evolution and may remain in our genome forever.

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If one considers not just vitamin-dependent enzymes but all the 30,000 human proteins in the genome, "every individual would harbor approximately 250 deleterious substitutions considering only the low-frequency variants. These numbers suggest that the aggregate incidence of low-frequency variants could have a significant physiological impact," the researchers wrote in their paper.

[glowing]

1. One would say that most people, then, are gettig the short end of the

stick nutritionally. Perhaps, it has to do with the addition of so much processed, GMO, radiated foods that we spend, now, more money for at the grocery store.

[Celebration]

2. most likely you are correct but not the point of the article

The main point is that there is a wide variation in the need for vitamins and minerals, but at some time in the future we will be able to test for these things through genetic testing. People will be able to take supplements based on their individual needs, optimizing their enzyme production, and thus lessening their "genetic" tendency to contract certain diseases.

[glowing]

3. I think you are correct.. and unlike drugs, vitamins and supplements

normally are something that come with little side effect... ok, a couple out there sometimes make you smell like garlic, but that's a far better side effect than liver failure.. I'm really pleased to see some interest in studying the effects of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes.. how they actually help.. and realistically are far cheaper than many drugs on the market.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Various supplements other than vitamins can have profound effects

on gene expression.

Green tea compounds vs Parkinson's disease. Note to sweepers, I am not saying green tea treats Parkinson's disease.... I am only quoting a real medical research paper here. If sweeping becomes necessary in future posts, please leave the debris by the curb so I can pick it up later. TIA.

http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/short/17/8/935

4. Quantitative real-time PCR of EGCG-treated cells
EGCG is a highly potent neuroprotective compound in cell culture and an in vivo model of PD that decreases the proapoptotic/cell cycle gene expression and increases the cell survival genes. To compare and confirm the effects of EGCG with those of DA, R-APO, and melatonin, real-time PCR analysis was performed. Indeed, a low concentration (1 µM) of EGCG decreased the expression of bax and caspase-6 mRNA. By contrast, a high concentration (50 µM) increased the expression of bax and gadd45 and decreased bcl-2 and bcl-xL mRNA levels.