John O’Connor, founder of Gene Food (mygenefood.com), discusses the importance of diet and explains how our genetic composition is literally a road map that takes us to the diet destination our body prefers.

John O’Connor is very passionate about nutrition, genetics, and startups. O’Connor discusses the idea behind his company, Gene Food—which is bio-individuality. As he explains, people are unique individuals and as such respond in their own specific way to different inputs.

He talks about the current debate in the public discourse on diets, specifically paleo and vegan diets. O’Connor states that we have genetic differences as individuals, and thus there is a code that we can discover that will inform us about which type of diet will perform best, based on our unique composition. O’Connor discusses his company’s custom algorithm that can parse someone’s genetic data and assign them to one of about 20 different foundational diet categories. As an individual tailors their diet and lifestyle to their specific genetic makeup, they have a greater chance to look their best and perform their best, not to mention feeling better than perhaps they ever have. The Gene Food custom nutrition plan utilizes raw data from popular genetic information providers such as 23andme and Ancestry.com to design a custom nutrition report tailored to one’s particular genetics.

O’Connor discusses genetic variants and how diet plays an important role for everyone, specifically those who have increased risk for certain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and others.

He discusses inflammatory response in regard to diet, and how certain diets affect those who are at increased risk for select diseases and conditions. He details the importance of being cautious about the types of fats that people consume, especially if they are genetically predisposed to have a higher risk of a type of disease. Many of these people should consider Omega 3s and polyunsaturated fats he concludes.

The diet and nutrition expert provides and overview of SNPs which are single nucleotide polymorphisms, commonly pronounced as ‘snips’ in the scientific community. SNPs are the most typical type of genetic variation in people.

Each individual SNP represents a difference in a specific single DNA building block, known as a nucleotide. Further, he delves into the many kinds of diets that they assign to their subscribers, and how their custom report provides a wealth of information on foods to avoid as well as foods to seek out, all based on one’s internal genetics.

O’Connor talks about the vision he has for his company and his future plans to roll out more health coaching, as the appetite for it is great based on the extraordinary volume of questions they receive on their blog daily. And O’Connor discusses physical environments and their impact on how one might react to food, discussing histamine intolerance and more. Interestingly, even one’s selection of their social drink of choice could make a difference based on their histamine intolerance. So whether you order a beer, a gin and tonic, or a glass of red wine, your genetic report can inform you about which one is okay, and which is not. O’Connor’s team seeks to end dietary dysfunction and find ways for every individual to eat better, in line with their genetic makeup, and feel better overall.

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