Uninformed consent in nutrigenomic research

Genetic testing for personalizing diet and wellness programs is performed without extensive counseling that informs about the potential implications of knowing one’s genotype status. Genetic counseling seems redundant for genes that impact the effect of diet on biomarkers such as cholesterol and blood pressure, but the same genes may have pleiotropic effects that cannot be ignored. A well-known example is the APOE gene, which is implicated in cholesterol regulation and is a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Not fully informing participants about the major pleiotropic effects of genes has ethical implications and invalidates informed consent.