Food Seq.: ewww or eureka?

One of the first things we notice when moving to a new place is, perhaps, the food. What vegetables or fruit do people in this country eat? What’s the typical breakfast like? More recently, young people also started to make social media trends of different cuisines and meals. Our lives and cultures have always been centered around food. It’s only in the last few years that dieting and paying attention to the (anti)nutrients in our bodies through science has come into the spotlight. With the advancement of DNA sequencing technologies, Dr. Lawrence David has been able to better track the American diet and its influence on the population’s gut microbiota. Food seq detects genetic material that goes undigested through the gut and into the stool. This allows scientists to more faithfully tell what food has been ingested, even if by mistake. I was especially interested in his research because of its influence on the gut-brain axis. From personal experience, the food I ingest directly impacts my mood and energy levels during the day. I wonder how longer diets and eating habits may be involved in health issues such as cancer, major depressive disorder, child development, etc. I enjoy the new lens through which old scientific queries are being explored—maybe applying new gen seq technologies to these issues will give us clues on where to look next.