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Genetics of vegetarianism: A genome-wide association study
A sizable amount of research suggests that food choices are heritable. Although vegetarianism has been practiced for millennia in many different countries, there is still a small percentage of vegetarians in the world, and it has yet to be widely known how much heredity plays a part in selecting a vegetarian diet. Dietary decisions entail a complex interaction between the physiological effects of food, taste perception, and metabolism – all significantly impacted by heredity. In this work by Yaseen et al. (2023), the authors performed a GAWS: genome-wide association study to locate loci in UK Biobank individuals related to the practice of strict vegetarianism. Analysis of the results indicated one SNP on chromosome 18 that is substantially linked with vegetarianism on a genome-wide level (rs72884519) and an additional 201 suggestively significant variations when comparing data on 5,324 strict vegetarians to 329,455 controls. rs72884519 is linked to the RIOK3, TMEM241, NPC1, and RMC1 genes. In addition, the authors discovered 34 genes that may have a role in vegetarianism using the Functional Mapping and Annotation (FUMA) platform and the Multi-marker Analysis of GenoMic Annotation (MAGMA) tool, three of these genes were found to be GWAS-significant based on gene-level analysis: RMC1, RIOK3, and NPC1. Variations in lipid metabolism and their impact on the brain may contribute to the capacity to survive on a vegetarian diet. These genes, which include NPC1, TMEM241, and RMC1, have significant roles in lipid metabolism and brain function. The authors comment that their findings provide credence to the idea that genetics may play a role in the decision to follow a vegetarian diet and pave the way for future research to better understand the physiologic mechanisms underlying vegetarianism. [NPID: Vegetarianism, vegans, genome, heredity, dietary preferences]
Year: 2023
