Genetic testing could be used to draw up healthy diets for patients, scientists said today.
Genes could be used to identify individual tastes and choices of food, researchers say.
Some 17 genes have been found linked to preference for foods including blue cheese, ice cream, coffee, chocolate, white wine and mushrooms, the European Society of Human Genetics, meeting in Milan, Italy, was told.
Researchers say that more work is needed to pin-point the reasons why particular genes are linked to some foods.
Previous studies have identified the genes linked to the ability to taste bitter foods.
The Italian researchers studied some 2,300 volunteers from their own country and another 1,755 people from other countries in Europe and central Asia.
Researcher Dr Nicola Pirastu, of the University of Trieste, Italy, said: "Although there has been a lot of work on food-related diseases such as obesity, this has rarely taken food preferences into account.
"This is a major limitation which our work attempts to remedy, and as yet we have only really scratched the surface of this issue.”
* The conference also heard that the latest DNA tests are offering "quicker, cheaper and accurate" screening of embryos before women under in-vitro fertilisation.
Dr Francesco Fiorentino, from the GENOMA Molecular Genetics Laboratory, Rome, Italy, said next generation DNA sequencing could "revolutionise" the procedure.
Leave a Reply