DNA test kits promise to help craft your diet using the most personal thing about you: your genes. And they’re growing in popularity among consumers eager for a new path to wellness — one that’s tailored specifically to them. The idea is that everyone's genes are unique, so everyone must have a different set of nutritional requirements to achieve optimal health.
Proponents say the analysis provided by DNA kits offers a new way to look at nutrition. “We can personalize shoes and personalize clothing, and it's a no brainer that everybody needs their own kind of lifestyle solution, but it wasn't until recently that people [realized], ‘We actually need to have personalized nutrition,’” says Sherry Zhang, CEO and co-founder of GenoPalate, a DNA test kit company. On its website, the company says its services offer a way to "discover the healthiest foods for you, based on your genes.”
But this fusion of genetics with nutrition — an emerging field called nutrigenomics — can get fuzzy on the hard science. Zhang — who studied microbiology and holds a doctorate in molecular biology — as well as other scientists, generally agree that everyone’s genes hold a small number of variations that affect how their body metabolizes nutrients like carbohydrates, fats and minerals. While this might be true, critics say that the extent to which "gene-based" food recommendations actually influence measures of one's overall health — blood pressure, diabetes risk, weight, and so on — might be overblown.
