Eating is a very basic necessity for all living things. People eat to survive. What people eat varies, and not all the food would be good for one's health. Now there is genetic evidence that shows we are what we eat.
For a long time it is said that we are what we eat, and that has never been true than today. What we eat would lead to what we are physically. This is true for humans, and it is true for others organisms as well. Researchers from the University of Oxford have tested two groups of parasites to see if what they eat would affect their DNA.
Dr. Steven Kelly is one of the study's co-authors and is from the University of Oxford's Department of Plant Sciences. He observed that food provides the building blocks that make DNA. A different diet then, he hypothesized, could alter the DNA of an organism.
For the test the parasites used have a common ancestor but infect different hosts. That means they have different food sources, the University of Oxford's site reports. With the study, it has been found that the levels of nitrogen in the parasites differ according to the food they eat. The study also notes that there is a relationship between evolution and cellular metabolism.
Emily Seward, a co-author of the study and a doctoral candidate for the Department of Plant Sciences said that it is not clear why organisms that are closely related could have different genetic makeup. What has come out of the study is that what the parasites eat have much influence in their DNA, which would partly explain why they're different, according to Science Daily.
There would still be much research to be done on how food can affect DNA. In many ways food does have an effect on organisms, especially on people. What is eaten would eventually affect health. Now that there is genetic evidence that we are what we eat, future diets might be able to be made that better help in fighting certain diseases much better, and perhaps even prevent them from happening. Also being studied is how poverty and cancer mortality are linked together.
