March 23, 2004 NUTRITION NEWS FOCUS "Nutrition news is important. We help you understand it!" Today's Topic: Transgenes in Your Gut Transgenes are bits of DNA inserted into plants through the process of genetic modification. This is primarily done to improve qualities of the plant that benefit the farmer, such as reducing the need for pesticides and herbicides. Of course, spraying less of these chemicals is also good for the environment. A new study finds that transgenic plant DNA can survive some of the digestive process and get incorporated into intestinal bacteria. The observations were only true in volunteers who had ileostomies, surgical diversions at the end of the small intestine through the wall of the abdomen. No transgenic DNA survived passage through the colon. The study was reported in the February 2004 issue of Nature Biotechnology. HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Transfer of DNA among bacteria is well known. The relevant question is if DNA can be transferred to humans and the answer is an unequivocal "no" from this study; even though some news articles asked this question, several did not answer it. Among the seven people with ileostomies, four had almost no DNA in the ileostomy fluid and only one had more than one percent of the original material. Remember that we eat DNA from plants and animals every day, so transfer can occur from native or transferred genes.