Chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease reduce the health span of Canadians and cost the economy approximately $68B in direct costs each year [1]. Diets offer safe, effective, and affordable ways to help manage these conditions.

Dr. Jim Johnson and other researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC), in collaboration with the Institute for Personalized Therapeutic Nutrition (IPTN), have recently shown that a low sugar, low calorie diet could reverse type 2 diabetes and allow 35% of people to discontinue their diabetes medications.

Unfortunately, not everyone responds equally well to these diets, possibly because of differences in genetics and in how their bodies respond to food. In particular, the effectiveness of diets might be related to insulin, an important hormone. ‘Personalized nutrition’ promises to match the right diet to the right person at the right time.

In this project, Dr. Johnson and collaborators at IPTN aim to study the cells that produce insulin in an effort to link a person’s genetics to their responses to the main macronutrients – sugars, proteins and fats.

Combining the three macronutrient responses with the underlying gene markers could represent a potential breakthrough in personalized therapeutic nutrition, enabling a simple genetic test to predict the best diet for an individual. Knowing an individual’s genetic predisposition to insulin drivers may help clinicians provide tailored dietary guidance to better manage blood sugar and insulin levels. Providing effective, genetically informed personalized nutrition has the potential to transform the BC health care landscape, saving millions of dollars and significantly improving the quality of life for many Canadians.

[1] Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada, 2018 pre-budget submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, August 2017.