ANDREW MEEHAN and RICK CONTRERAS	While a complete picture of the relationship between food, genes and complex disease has yet to be worked out, several stats point to the benefits nutrigenomic predictions might have for human health. By KATE TRAVIS

13% Relative increase in high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels among women who ate high amounts of polyunsaturated fats and had the A allele in the promoter region of APOA1, compared with those with the more common G allele who ate similar amounts of unsaturated fat.¹

23% Percentage of normal-weight mice born to mothers fed a genistein (soy isoflavone)-rich diet compared to 10% of offspring born to mothers fed phyto-estrogen-free diets. The diet produced the shift by increasing methylation at specific sites of the agouti gene, which controls both coat color and obesity in these mice.²

0.44% Percentage of Caucasians found homozygous for the 282C/Y mutation on the HFE gene, placing them at high risk of hemochromatosis or iron overload.³

2 Number of alleles on the lactase gene associated with lactase persistence in 77% of European Americans.⁵

68% Decrease in colorectal cancer risk among men who consumed adequate folate and were homozygous for the 677C/T mutation in 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) compared with men heterozygous or homozygous normal at that allele. The protective effect disappeared in men who were folate deficient.⁶

58 million are salt-sensitive--their mean arterial blood pressure increases at least 10% with a high-salt diet-and therefore at greater risk of hypertension.
The gene responsible is unknown.⁷

76 Number of days it took for rats fed resveratrol, a polyphenol in grape skins, to develop tumors after breast cancer was induced, compared with 57 days in control rats and 51 days in rats fed EGCG, a polyphenolﾭ in green tea.³

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