Website: http://www.utoronto.ca/nutrisci/faculty/El-Sohemy/

Research involves

Identification of molecular targets of nutrients and investigation of the genetic basis for individual responses to diet.

Research relevance

Provide a scientific basis for making dietary recommendations to prevent chronic diseases and advance the development of foods to improve health.

Feeding Good Health

We are, indeed, what we eat. Nutrition is one of the most important factors that affect the risk of developing chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. Nutrigenomics is an emerging branch of nutritional sciences that applies information on the human genome to study the link between diet and disease.

The goal of research in nutrigenomics is to provide fundamental knowledge toward understanding how genetic factors modify our response to diet and how dietary factors alter the expression of genes that are relevant to the cause or origin of a disease. The application of nutrigenomics to study diet-disease relationships provides us with a better understanding of the effects of what we consume, enables clinical studies to be designed more efficiently, and can help advance the development of novel foods.

Dr. Ahmed El-Sohemy's goal is to apply the techniques of molecular biology in cell culture and human studies to investigate the beneficial and harmful effects of dietary compounds. Use of a wide range of research models will enable him to apply his laboratory findings to test novel approaches to study the diet-disease relationship in humans.

His focus is on osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. The unifying theme of his program is to identify relevant gene-diet interactions that change the molecular and biochemical pathways affecting cellular processes related to the development of these and other chronic diseases.

Dr. El-Sohemy's current program encompasses four major projects. The first examines whether certain fatty acids alter the expression of genes that are known to regulate bone development. The second project is a study of gene-diet interactions and bone mineral density in post-menopausal women. In his third project, Dr. El-Sohemy will explore why people metabolize vitamin E in different ways. His fourth project will look at the possibility that genetic variability in drug-metabolizing enzymes modifies the effects of diet, and environmental factors, on the risk of heart attack.