The Role of Genetic Variants in Detoxification and Epigenetic Regulation

Year 2025, Volume: 8 Issue: 6, 316 - 324, 15.11.2025

İlknur Tındaş

https://doi.org/10.19127/bshealthscience.1768860

Abstract

Recent breakthroughs in functional healthcare emphasize to the prominence of genetic variation in regulating how each person reacts to nutritional, environmental, and biochemical signals. Genetic analyses identify variants that impact crucial physiological processes, enabling a personalized approach to health enhancement. This review summarizes main gene polymorphisms that are clinically significant in functional medicine: genes functional in detoxification and oxidative stress such as GSTT1, GSTM1, GSTP1, SOD2, NQO1 and cytochrome P450 enzymes, which control the removal of xenobiotics and oxidative equilibrium; and methylation and epigenetic related genes, MTHFR, MTR, MTRR, COMT, and BHMT, which are essential for folate cycling, neurotransmitter metabolism, and DNA methylation. These gene panels can be employed for hormone balance optimization, customized detoxification regimens, early risk assessment for neuropsychiatric and cardiometabolic illnesses, and focused dietary therapies in clinical applications. To more effectively support personalized decision-making processes in functional medicine, this review has deliberately narrowed its scope by focusing on high translational value, targetable, and clinically relevant genetic variants. A genetic assessment for personalized medicine approach through therapeutic and preventive strategies will significantly contribute to identify disease susceptibility through methylation and detoxification mechanisms through understanding gene-environment interactions.

Keywords

Polymorphisms , Detoxification genes , Marker genes

Project Number

no project

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