Genetic Alterations and Nutritional Habits among Fast-Food Employees

摘要

Fast food sector is growing due to changing lifestyles. This model is very popular in all over the world and it comes with the idea to evaluate certain health aspects in terms of employee health and safety which became more of an issue recently. Nutritional habits, physical activity levels and possible genetic changes related to nutrition among the fast-food employees were evaluated in this work. 24 hour food and physical activity level records were used to determine nutritional habits and physical activity levels of employees (n=26) and controls (n=19). Exfoliated buccal cells were used to determine genetic change level related to nutrition habit. It was found that the two groups' energy intake was lower than the recommendation levels. But experimental groups' activity level was too high. A significant increased incidence of changes between the controls and subjects were observed (P< 0.05); a non-significant increase in females and a significant increase in males were also observed. Smoking habit didnot significantly affect the genetic changes in both genders. Based on our results, the nutrition habit of the experimental group most probably affected their genome health. However further detailed work should be conducted to arrive at definite conclusion.