As the analysis also points out, the findings resolve the biggest conundrum in human health. The epidemiological data have always indicated that Western diseases are determined overwhelmingly by diet and other non-genetic factors. Similarly, clinical data have frequently shown that many diseases can be reversed or accelerated by diet and other lifestyle choices. The crucial importance of the new genomic findings is therefore to show that genetic research does not after all contradict these environmental explanations of disease. Rather, it now very strongly supports them.

"Resolution of this conflict has tremendous implications," says co-author Dr. Allison Wilson. "It means human disease is primarily of environmental and not inherited origin. It means that knowledge of the human genome is not going to fulfill most of the medical progress and therapeutic roles it was intended to. And it means that for most people personalized genomics is never going to be useful for predicting the diseases they will develop. And it also means we need to get serious about researching the broader environmental and dietary causes of all these diseases."

The authors, however, believe that the results should not be seen as bad news. "It means that our fate does not reside in disease genes. Our health is in our own hands," said Dr. Latham.

SOURCE The Bioscience Resource Project