Future of Fitness, Nutrition & Performance: Application of Kinesio Genomics & Nutrigenomics

Fitness has become significantly important given than 1.6 billion folks across the world are overweight & are suffering/at the risk of suffering from lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, obesity & cardiovascular diseases. The reason for such a fateful health syndrome is adoption of western & american diet which is high in processed carbs & sugar, impacting our gut health. We have discussed impact of foods high in processed carbs, sugar on our gut health in our previous blog.

Lifestyle diseases have become a big problem & requires a bigger solution-fundamental change in lifestyle of the people. Till now most of us have resorted to gyms & health clubs to indulge in workout & advice of self proclaimed experts to guide on nutrition. People who go to gym for workout would be following a similar workout schedule based on their fitness goals. For instance, if your fitness goal is fat loss, you will do a mix of weight training, cardio & function in a somewhat similar allocation of these workout modules for almost everyone. Gyms & trainers do not focus on muscle type & body type to structure a workout. Similar for nutrition, people are advised a somewhat similar kind of diet based on nutrition goals & risk of lifestyle diseases. For instance, people suffering from hypothyroidism may have similar nutrition plans with minor tweaks here & there.

The end result- either people are not able to meet our fitness goals in spite of following a recommended workout & nutrition plan or sooner revert back to their original health status. The irony is we do see a lot of fitness models (both offline & online) trying to solve the problem of lifestyle diseases, but following a similar approach of curating workout & nutrition based on their standard philosophy of having right macros & exercise routine based on fitness goals.

So what are they actually missing out? It is specific science which studies DNA & genes of a particular body & bridges the gap by interaction between our muscle/ nutrition/diet & lifestyle habits & its impacts on our DNA. Human body has 20,000 to 30,000 genes which impacts our lifestyle habits & what we should come/exercise we should indulge into.

For instance, gene study & analysis, also referred as genomics,  can determine the sensitivity of polyunsaturated fatty acid levels, antioxidant levels, its response to dietary fat or intolerant to gluten.These factors are constant( not changing) over the course of life of an individual & the amendment in nutrition to align with the body’s reaction to different foods requires a scientific solution.

How does genomics help us?

1. It defines the power of your body to absorb vital nutrients for a healthy body & mind. For instance, you follow a general diet of having a good amount of polyunsaturated fa(PUF)t on the predisposition that it will help in growth & development of your body however if your DNA is highly sensitive to PUFL, you may be advised to have PUF in moderation. Similarly genomics study defines your body’s sensitivity to various vitamins & minerals.
2. The impact of minerals & vitamins on various organs & body parts.
3. Nutritional factors that can prevent your genome from damage.
4. Impact of genes on your nutrition, diet, lifestyle, fitness & habits
5. Another variant of genomics is Kinesio Genomics which studies the role of genes in sports & fitness performance, identification of genes that contribute to response & adaptation of the body’s tissue system to various exercise related stimuli.
6. Study of genes defines the ratio between fast twitch & slow twitch muscle fibre in our body which helps predict personalised exercise/workout prescription
7. The impact of diet on the balance between healthy and diseased states depends on our DNA. For example, gene study can tell us about sensitivity for antioxidant activity. Individuals who carry such variants need to  have antioxidants rich diets.
8. Gene study can also help in our body’s sensitivity to weight loss resistance & rebound weight gain which can help structure the intensity of workout.
9. We generally talk of hypertrophy in muscle building. Exercisenomics helps us in evaluating genetic risk to hypertrophy.

These are some of the benefits of using genomics which can us personalize our workout & nutrition to align with our fitness goals on a long term sustainable basis

We are soon launching with a genomics based fitness model which will help us personalize the exercise & nutrition for our clients based on their gene study & align the same in line with sensitivity to various metabolic, nutrition & exercise stimuli factors.