Nutrigenomics--Put simply, food is information to our bodies. The foods we eat actually affect our bodies. Radical concept, right? Certain foods upregulate genes (activate them) or downregulate them (inactivate them). For example, there are genes (stretchs of DNA) that cause your body to store fat. Some foods upregulate those genes, for example simple carbs. For most of us, there are no doubt genes that cause our nerves to malfunction and cause our various symptoms. What foods downregulate these genes and promote healing and normal nerve function? Well I don't know but I think it will tend to come from what you have already heard--fruits, vegetables, whole grains--and not from meat, butter, margarine, hydrogenated oils, etc. But it would be nice to pin it down further than that. Bring on the research.

Dr. Mark Hyman is bringing out some of this info. Google "mark hyman nutrigenomics" to find some resources including some short videos. I'm not affiliated with Dr. Hyman except I have listened to his book The UltraMind Solution and believe he is bringing us into the future of medicine, medicine that looks at the root causes of illness instead of putting a bandaid on it like most current doctors do.

From wikipedia.org article on "nutrigenomics":

"Nutrigenomics is the study of the effects of foods and food constituents on gene expression. It is about how our DNA is transcribed into mRNA and then to proteins and provides a basis for understanding the biological activity of food components. [1] Nutrigenomics has also been described by the influence of genetic variation on nutrition by correlating gene expression or single-nucleotide polymorphisms with a nutrient's absorption, metabolism, elimination or biological effects. By doing so, nutrigenomics aims to develop rational means to optimise nutrition, with respect to the subject's genotype.

By determining the mechanism of the effects of nutrients or the effects of a nutritional regime, nutrigenomics tries to define the causality|relationship between these specific nutrients and specific nutrient regimes (diets) on human health. Nutrigenomics has been associated with the idea of personalized nutrition based on genotype. While there is hope that nutrigenomics will ultimately enable such personalised dietary advice, it is a science still in its infancy and its contribution to public health over the next decade is thought to be major."

Also see: "Mayo Researchers Find Candidate Gene Culprits for Chronic Pain"
http://newsblog.mayoclinic.org/2010/...-chronic-pain/

Electron