New vitamins tailored to genetic blueprints

By SIMON COLLINS, science reporter

Personalised vitamin pills could be the next dietary accessory for New Zealanders - but a "desperate" shortage of geneticists may make it impossible to find out who would benefit from them.

Nutrilite, the world's biggest producer of nutritional supplements, is developing new vitamin pills that will be tailored to each individual's genetic makeup.

The company's research head, Dr Sam Rehnborg, says the first products, to reduce inflammation in people with a genetic risk of heart attacks, will be on the market in the United States next year and in New Zealand two or three years later.

But Auckland's Northern Regional Genetic Service, which carries out genetic tests, has still not been able to replace its former clinical director Dr Ingrid Winship, who moved to Melbourne last year.

"We are desperately trying to replace her," said the service's manager, Julie Arnold. "But there is a complete worldwide shortage of geneticists. We only have one clinical geneticist, Dr Komudi Siriwardena."

There are two geneticists in Wellington, but the clinical leader there, Dr Joanne Dixon, said the country needed eight to meet the international benchmark of one for every 500,000 people.

Last year she said patients were "waiting months, if not years, to see a genetic service because there are not enough staff to go round".

She said there was no test available for genetic susceptibility to inflammation, and she would want to see evidence that one worked before introducing it.

"If you have a rare disease like Huntington's disease there are genetic tests that can be performed, but there is certainly nothing for general susceptibility to anything," she said.

"But it's certainly something the drug companies are interested in because they think they can make squillions of dollars out of people who are genetically vulnerable to all sorts of things."

Dr Rehnborg, a 68-year-old marathon runner whose father founded Nutrilite in 1935, passed through Auckland this week on his way home from a dawn run in Malaysia to celebrate the company's impending 70th birthday.

He said genetic tests for susceptibility to inflammation and heart attacks were being developed by Boston-based Interleukin Genetics, which was taken over last year by the direct-marketing group Amway. Amway has owned Nutrilite since 1972.

Interleukin Genetics' website says it has found variants in the genes governing production of interleukin proteins which make people between 2.4 and 5.4 times more likely than the average to suffer heart attacks.

It is also investigating how nutritional supplements can reduce the risk of an attack.

Dr Rehnborg said the genetic test of susceptibility could be done with a mouth swab that people could take themselves and send off to a genetic clinic for testing.

"If you had a lot of inflammation, we'd design a particular nutrition programme to reduce it," he said. "The early statistics show that more than 30 per cent of people we have evaluated have high inflammation. They will be candidates for a personalised approach to keeping their inflammation down."

He said Nutrilite would probably set up its own testing centres in the US initially, but he expected that the tests would be available at national clinics within 10 years.

Dr Rehnborg swallows between 25 to 30 pills a day ranging from general multivitamins to Omega-3 and antioxidants.

He said his products were needed because most people in developed countries today consumed fewer calories than their hunter-gatherer ancestors.

"We have moved from an active to a sedentary population. That has led to an epidemic of obesity and lack of physical fitness," he said.

He said the solution was to exercise more, eat less and take vitamin tablets to make up for the reduced vitamin intake from food.

Inflammation

Our bodies respond to shocks, such as bacterial infections, by pumping extra blood to the affected area.

The extra blood causes a high temperature, redness, swelling and pain.

It helps to isolate the damaged area and mobilises "protector" molecules.

But in some people it triggers allergies.

It is also suspected of contributing to heart attacks.

Nutrilite

Interleukin Genetics