ABSTRACT
Over the past few decades, the MENA has been witnessing significant changes in food habits paralleled by an important preponderance of metabolite-related diseases. In a region whose traditional diet is known to be healthy due to high vegetable proteins, fibers, minerals, and vitamins with low content of unfavorable food products, the “industrialization/westernization of the diet” is a well-studied and documented phenomenon [1-3]. The MENA has been losing its traditional diet which was distinguished by its diversity and richness in raw foods, proteins, and multivitamins, in the favor of a more industrial diet which consists of increased preprocessed foods, sugars, fats, alcohol, animal products, saturated-and trans-fatty acids, and relatively less vitamins and minerals with decreased consumption
of milk, fruits, and vegetables [4]. A big part of this change is attributed to the lifestyle changes and globalization with the invasion of western fast food to the MENA countries. Dietary choices, minimum physical activity, religious habits, consumer ignorance, high population growth rates, economic factors, and lack of both protection laws and food fortification programs are other critical factors that influence the nutritional status in the region [5]. These changes in dietary and lifestyle patterns contribute to an increase in the rates of micronutrients deficiencies, diet-related chronic diseases, and obesity in all groups of the population in the region [5]. Due to this grave impact on chronic diseases, diet became a target of public health initiatives that aim at restoring the traditional diet of MENA countries in order to improve health conditions in their populations [6-8]. The epidemiology of diet-related diseases in the MENA region and background information on the diet-genetics-disease interaction, followed by nutrigenomic examples on diet-related diseases in the MENA region, will be discussed for the first time in this paper.
