Have you ever attempted vegetarianism but found quitting meat to be too tough? A recent study suggests that your genes may be partially to blame.
A group of genes linked to individuals who followed a vegetarian diet for a minimum of a year was discovered by the study, which was published on Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.
The study’s lead author, Nabeel Yaseen, an emeritus professor of pathology at Northwestern University, speculated that the results might suggest that remaining a vegetarian requires more than just willpower.
Yaseen stated, “The take-home message is that a vegetarian diet may or may not be appropriate for you based on your genetics.” “If this is something you can’t really stick with, don’t blame yourself.”
The U.K. Biobank is a biomedical research database that contains information from approximately half a million participants in the U.K. The study compared the genetics of thousands of vegetarians and meat eaters who shared their medical and lifestyle data with the database.
The study found three genes that are substantially correlated with the decision to lead a vegetarian lifestyle after analyzing data from about 5,300 vegetarians and 329,000 meat eaters. All three are found on a chromosome that contains genes related to lipid metabolism, or the breakdown of fats into energy, and brain function.
The findings also suggested 31 additional, albeit weaker, genes linked to vegetarianism. Numerous genes are also involved in the metabolism of lipids.
“We are speculating that perhaps a person’s capacity to follow a vegetarian diet has something to do with their body’s metabolism of fats and how that impacts brain function,” Yaseen stated.
He did, however, note that the study does not claim that specific genes cause people to prefer a vegetarian diet; rather, it only illustrates a genetic connection.
Yaseen and his colleagues concentrated their study on individuals who, in their opinion, were strict vegetarians: those who had abstained from eating animal flesh or meat products for a minimum of a year. Participants’ responses to two questionnaires for the U.K. Biobank were used to determine who qualified. In the first, which was conducted four times between 2006 and 2019, participants were asked to self-report if they had consumed meat in the previous year. In the second, which was conducted five times between 2009 and 2012, participants were asked to list every meal they had consumed the day before.
It is neither novel nor shocking to consider that our genes may affect our food preferences. A study from the previous year also discovered a connection between an individual’s genes and food preferences, and it has long been known that genetics plays a role in food aversions.
For example, it’s well known that some individuals have a genetic predisposition to detest cilantro.
“The olfactory receptor in your nose that binds aroma compounds in cilantro is actually the cilantro gene,” explained Joanne Cole, an assistant professor in the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s biomedical informatics department who was not involved in the new study. “Some people tend to eat less cilantro because they have a version of this gene that makes them taste and smell soapy.”
However, Yaseen claimed that his findings are unique in that they show a connection between specific genes and vegetarianism.
In contrast, a significant body of previous research has examined the influence of genetics on dietary preferences primarily through twin comparisons.
Lead author of one such twin study, Dr. Laura Wesseldijk, reported that her January research revealed genetics to be responsible for “70 to 80% of individual differences in abstinence from eating beef, pork, poultry, fish and shellfish.”
However, Wesseldijk, an Amsterdam University Medical Centers behavioral geneticist who was not involved in the new study, pointed out that human traits are never solely influenced by nature or nurture. Instead, she stated, “it’s all completely entangled.”
Wesseldijk continued, “A person’s environment and upbringing, which can be influenced by their health concerns, culture, or religious and moral beliefs, all play a significant role when it comes to diet.”
“A highly heritable trait can be completely counteracted by an environment, and vegetarianism is no exception,” the speaker stated.
Yaseen, for his part, identified two significant shortcomings in his research: First off, only white Caucasians were included in the study. He explained that other racial groups were left out to make sure that genes that might be connected to a specific race weren’t mistakenly connected to vegetarianism. Therefore, to ascertain whether the results have broader applicability, the study would need to be conducted again with different groups.
Second, there’s a chance that other genes could also be connected to vegetarianism as the study only looked at a small portion of the human genome.
Although Yaseen stated he has no immediate plans to conduct more research on the subject, he could envision a time in the future when, after much more study has been done, experts could be able to determine whether a vegetarian diet is a good fit for a particular person based on their DNA.
“Hopefully, as we learn more, we’ll be able to perhaps perform genetic testing on individuals and determine whether or not a particular diet is good for them—in other words, be able to provide more individualized dietary recommendations.”
