New research designed to help consumers create customized diets
based on their genetic make up will create ethical and legal
challenges with serious implications for the scientific and
medical communities, warns a new consultation paper by a panel
of international experts. The paper, "Nutrition and Genes:
Science, Society and the Supermarket," a joint project of the
University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics (JCB) and the
University of Guelph philosophy department, examines ethical
questions surrounding the rapidly emerging field of nutritional
genomics, also called nutrigenomics, the study of how nutrients
and genes interact and how genetic variations can cause people
to respond differently to food nutrients. Research started in
2000 and is still in its infancy but scientists already predict
it could bring about radical changes in how food is grown,
processed and consumed. They believe it will not be long before
the arrival of personalized diets tailored to genetic make up. A
major target will be the b