Last night the Health Lodge welcomed Dr Denise Furness for an intimate gathering with some of our local practitioner colleagues. She introduced those present to a new Nutrigenomic test offering which she has been collaborating with Bioceutical's on for 2 years.
Denise has an impressive CV, first training as a Medical Geneticist before working alongside Michael Fenech regarded as one of Australia's leading Nutrigenomic researchers. She now spends much of her time consulting and educating practitioners on the interpretation of genetic testing.
Since the genome was decoded in 2003 the uptake of genetic testing amongst doctors has been slow. And for good reasons. Firstly, science needed to work out what all these genes do and then work out how variations in these genes affect the function of proteins. That's still a work in progress. Secondly, when new tests come along, practitioners need to be assured these tests are reproducible, that is they give us accurate results. Thirdly, many ethical questions arose such as testing for disease risk genes and insurance implications. Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, when the genome was decoded it was widely believed this new understanding would yield the answers and solutions to many illnesses. It didn't. Rather, in the intervening 15 years science has discovered it's a whole lot more complex than we expected. Epigenetics has shown us the primary role the environment plays in how our genes express. Transcriptomics is now showing us even more layers of checks and balances involved in the expression of genes. All of that said, I do believe the time is upon us to begin testing genetics more widely. And I think this new test is an important advancement for one key reason.
The feature I think is particularly important with this test is that it tests for some of the key genes involved in Phase 1 liver detoxification such as CYP2D6 and CYP2C19. These genes dictate how the body deals with certain pharmaceutical drugs and individuals can vary in this regard by a factor of a thousand fold. This is called Pharmacogenomics. Essentially that means Arthur might take drug X and have no response because he metabolises the medication too quickly whilst Martha gets severely unwell (or even permanently damaged) because she is unable to metabolise the drug and it builds up quickly to toxic levels. Previously we could test for Nutrigenomics (Methylation genes, Antioxidant genes, Vitamin D genes etc) or Pharmacogenomics (Liver Detox CYPs) but this offering from Bioceuticals is the first that I am aware of that tests for both. Short of doing a full genome study.
There are some potentially clinically useful genes not currently covered by this Bioceutical's test (eg. Pro-inflammatory cytokines) but Denise informed us that they will be increasing the number of genes tested over time.
In short, genetic individuality lies at the heart of Personalised Medicine. As Lucretius said, 'one man's meat is another man's poison'. And as Hippocrates said 'Do no harm'. Through modern technology and advanced testing such as genetics, practitioners are now better placed than ever before to individualise the treatment protocols of their patient's, minimising harms and optimising function.
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