The fashion for a healthy lifestyle and being fit captured the minds of Poles. We are looking for newer and newer diets that will help to get a shapely figure, and at the same time keep the body in good condition and will not cause side effects. One of the latest discoveries in the field of dietetics is the DNA-compatible diet. What is it and what are its basic principles? These and other questions will be answered by Agnieszka Piskała-Topczewska, dietician, nutrition specialist, diet coach.
What exactly is a DNA-based diet?
Agnieszka Piskała-Topczewska: A DNA-based diet is a diet that is tailored to a patient’s genetic makeup. The influence of genes on each other causes our body to work in a certain way and requires or requires avoiding certain nutrients. Such adaptation of the menu allows us to keep in great shape and health.
What is the novelty of this diet? Why is it different from all the rest?
The DNA-based diet is adjusted individually. No two people are alike, and therefore no two eating plans are alike. The specialist arranges it based on the genetic tests performed. A personalized diet allows you to avoid many health problems that are stored in our DNA.
For example, which ones?
For example diabetes, but also atherosclerosis or certain allergies or intolerances. Its use can even prevent cancer or stroke. In addition, the tests allow you to determine your predisposition to practice specific sports. This diet – importantly – also has an impact on weight control.
Can we talk about effective weight loss in this diet?
In my opinion, yes, because it identifies different variants of the DNA code. They affect our specific ability to process fats and carbohydrates, which allows us to find food products conducive to achieving optimal weight without the effect of yo-yo. This is confirmed by the example of Italy, which is a pioneer and successful in this field. In Poland, the DNA-based diet is also gaining more and more supporters.
Are the classic “Healthy Eating Pyramid” and nutritional standards losing their importance?
Absolutely not, this is still the starting point for effective patient care. To advise something, you must have a starting point, but an individual approach to the patient confirms that if something is for everyone, it really is for no one. My experience in working with nutridieta confirms that the “Healthy Eating Pyramid” is recommended only for 52% of the population, others require individual “variation” on it so that it is beneficial for their health, figure and well-being.
Czy genetic research make work easier only for a dietitian, or also for the patient?
The advantage of genetic tests is the improvement of the quality and efficiency of a dietitian’s work, who no longer has to “feel” a little bit of modifying the patient’s current menu on the basis of “please eat more protein, then we will speed up the metabolism, reduce fats and increase complex carbohydrates a bit” … and then we pray to next visit to see if it worked. If not, we have a natural sense of professional failure, and the patient’s motivation and… trust in the dietitian he hoped for automatically fall. When doing genetic tests, a dietitian has a tool for a specific job, and from my own observation I also see that the patient has more humility. This is a good sign, because now it is not the dietitian who tells him what to change in the current diet, but … his own body.
So if a patient gets such tests and takes them to a workshop with a dietitian, there is a greater chance that he will follow his recommendations?
Working on a daily basis with patients who have chosen this path of treatment and diagnostics, I can see how real is the mission of a dietitian, “to be the way, not the goal”. The patient knows and is aware which processes in the functioning of his body require “diet tuning”, and I am enriched with this knowledge, I can convey it to them in a way that is understandable to them. Finally, I give them a fishing rod (dietary recommendations tailored to them), not a fish (printed 7-day menu). They decide about everything with greater awareness and care for their body, and thanks to this they achieve spectacular results.
And what did you, a dietitian who has been practicing for 17 years, captivate or surprise you about this method of helping patients?
For many years I was looking for my professional fulfillment. Through the classic “dietetics” with which you leave after graduation, through mass preventive education, diet-psychology and oncological nutrition, I came to the conclusion that I am closer to disease prevention … than subsequent treatment of the effects of improper nutrition. Genetic tests help me a lot, because although I ask each patient before consulting the obtained results, what emotions are accompanying them now, most of them say: “I’m afraid”, as if these results were a sentence, and yet this is the perfect tool for many diseases she didn’t touch us.
Gluten is probably the word that “sponsors” recent years. Everyone is on a gluten-free diet. Is this the right decision?
Unfortunately, no, because this is another diet that has spread in the media with a tsunami and is cascaded “from friend to friend”. Many were delighted with it, because a well-known media person admitted to it. On the one hand, we are very fond of nutritional fads, on the other hand, we are unable to listen to our own body. In order not to look far, I have a very low genetic predisposition to celiac disease, my son has a very high genetic predisposition. Does this mean that now I will eat wheat rolls in secret from my child, and my son will now eat tomato soup with rice or soy noodles? No, but if I and him ever get (knock on :)) migraine headaches, diagnosis in the context of celiac disease will be in the first place for him, for me … in the last place. And this is the wisdom that we draw from genetic testing.
So the results of these studies are not always a revolution in the current diet?
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. We will still compose a diet for the patient based on the existing food products, only in different proportions. For most patients it is a kind of “puff …” that you will not have to get reindeer meat or glacier water for dinner :), for some, unfortunately, the test results are a disappointment.
How do they disappoint that?
Once upon a time, I had a patient who was quite overweight, and at the same time genetic tests did not show that he had an active FTO obesity gene. He really wanted to “blame” his parents for his appearance and additionally 6 generations back. Genetics is not our alibi for everything, we talked honestly and it turned out that his weight and well-being problem is related to his current diet and lifestyle. This is what we should focus on thinking and acting on, not looking for an alibi in tests.
Then why do them? When do they make sense?
They always make sense. At any age and under any circumstances, because at any age, they can determine the further path of diagnosis, treatment or prevention of many diseases. However, I am a propagator of this research, especially among children, even the smallest ones, right after birth. I know from experience that a child is a big expense at the beginning, but instead of buying an expensive stroller, which will be available in a year, because it will have to be converted into a stroller, it is worth investing in genetic tests that will NEVER lose their relevance. If the parents see that the child has, for example, a congenital sodium intolerance – they will teach them to eat low-salt products, if the child shows poor oxidative abilities, from the first months, they will teach the child to eat vegetables and fruit, because it will be a better and tastier policy for health and good health. well-being than many insurance.
What do such DNA tests look like? Are they invasive?
They are not invasive. They consist in taking the epithelium from the inside of the cheek with a special brush and subjecting it to laboratory analysis. There are also no age restrictions for such tests. They are so safe that they can be performed even with very young children. In addition, research is protected – laboratories cannot test anything unrelated to the research topic, such as genetic diseases.
Do you think that it is worth using such research?
From the point of view of a dietitian’s work – of course it is. I believe that DNA tests facilitate the selection of a nutritional plan and are a great help in my work. Thanks to them, we do not wander in the dark and we know what to avoid in the diet prepared for a given person. But such knowledge is also useful to every person. We often use slimming diets, exercise, and the effects are not visible. This is where this research is helpful – thanks to it we will find out what to eat to make our efforts to get slimmer more effective.
If you want to know more about the NutriGen genetic test, please visit www.nutrigen.pl
Discussion of the results of NutriGen- dietitian Agnieszka Piskała-Topczewska – YouTube