Can Genomics help athletes realise their full potential

Can Genomics help athletes realise their full potential? Sports performance of an individual is greatly impacted by his/her dietary nutrition and strategies. This is true for all ages, ethnicities & levels of skill regardless of whether your fitness goal is to maintain a healthy & fit physique or train for high performance sport. Whatever your objective is, a curated nutrition & supplement plan is the key to achieve that objective. American College of Sports Medicine, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Dietitians of Canada jointly state that “Nutrition plans need to be personalized to the individual athlete and take into account specificity and uniqueness of responses to various strategies.” These strategies include overall dietary patterns, macronutrient ratios, micronutrient requirements, eating behaviours, food sensitivities & intolerances, impact of consuming various supplements & ergogenic acids. A paradigm shift from standard, one size fits all to a curated nutrition & workout and focus on an individual's specific need is what we are trying to address through ​genomics​ based online programs. It is all about Genes! Personalised nutrition based on an individual's genetic code is not a new concept. There are examples of common genetic disorders such as celiac disease, lactose intolerance & gluten intolerance where specific dietary recommendations are advised & implemented to overcome metabolic deficiencies. For such commonly seen conditions, avoiding dairy & gluten consumption are part of dietary recommendations. In case of consumption of Java(coffee), your genetic code &/or variation may define whether you embrace it or avoid it. Many athletes are not aware if caffeine consumption is harmful for them or not. Genetic testing for the rate of caffeine metabolism may help to motivate them to experiment to do workout with or without caffeine rather than assuming it works or never trying it out of suspicion & missing benefits out of it. Although Genetic testing is a well established clinical assessment to help manage disease & conditions, it has created enormous opportunities to improve health, wellness & sports performance in athletes through nutrition focussed genetic testing. As the sporting world battles with risky supplements, the sport science community is embracing new ways to help athletes safely reach their peak performance. While it has been longly suspected that genetics plays an important role in determining how we respond to food & nutrients & how we sweat, the rise in genomics search has proven it scientifically. Our genetic coding determines how we absorb, metabolize & utilize nutrients & these genes by diet interactions determine the difference in sports nutrition & performance in individuals. Use of personal genomic testing that will provide recommendations on nutrition that will be beneficial at an individual level than the current standard nutrition advice. It is important to understand that the standard advice, as endorsed by various governments & health/fitness bodies, is for an active population & you are an individual & not “population”.

# Nutrigenomics, sports, athletes, full potential, nutrition, health & fitness, diet patterns, diet strategies, personalised diet, curated fitness, online coaching