According to the Full Professor of Nutrition José María Ordovás, director of the laboratory of Nutrition and Genetics of Tufts University (Boston, USA), the prevention of obesity begins before birth, "so we must not miss any opportunity to tackle what could be a real pandemic in a few years".
The expert in Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics, candidate to the award Prince of Asturias of research in 2007, receives today the VI award Food and Health, awarded annually by the Chair Tomás Pascual Sanz-University of Navarra to prestigious international researchers in the fields of food and health.

In this case, the award promoted by the School of Pharmacy recognizes the programs of study of Ordovás on nutrition and Genetics, and its influence on the cause and prevention of different diseases. The expert will speak about this research during the submission of the award, which will take place at 7 p.m. at classroom Magna of Central Building.

Among Ordovás' work, his research on Genetics and environment in different races, geographical locations and cultural traditions throughout the world stand out. Analyses that, according to the expert, have confirmed that the globalization of diets and lifestyles is at the root of many of the problems linked to obesity: "Our genome has been adapting to the environmental conditions in which we lived relatively quickly -that is, in a few thousand years-. But now, with industrialization and homogenization, these same genes suffer a very big shock that does not allow them to adapt as quickly."

per diem expenses ideal: that of our grandparents
In the expert's opinion, this would be the case of the Indians and Chinese living in Singapore: "Both groups had very similar lifestyles, per diem expenses and environment. However, today the prevalence of obesity and diabetes is much higher among Indians, probably because their genome was more adapted to a low-calorie per diem expenses ".

"At summary", adds the future award winner, "the ideal per diem expenses of each population would be the traditional one of its culture and geographical area in recent centuries, with acceptable access to food, without famines or the nutritional deficiencies that have accompanied humanity throughout its history".