Jeans don't fit? Maybe it's your genes. That's the concept behind the relatively new science of nutrigenomics, which aims to create diets geared toward a person's specific genetic makeup. The discipline originated in 2003 with the completion of the Human Genome Project (the international research initiative to map all of the genes of Homo sapiens), when scientists were for the first time in history able to read the genetic blueprint for human life. Now nutrition scientists are studying this information to determine how the genes we're born with can be influenced by diet and lifestyle. If these researchers are correct, nutrigenomics has the potential to improve the way we treat health problems, from obesity and diabetes to cancer and heart disease. And help us fit into those Levi's.
—Chris Johns