Nala Talk

For young professionals, consuming coffee in the morning and fast food for lunch, and perhaps other unhealthy snacks to prevent drowsiness is a normal daily diet. Not infrequently, lunch was missed because of the limited time squeezed by various meetings. Not to mention that the office environment and exposure to other people cause young professionals to get sick more often, and sometimes hinder recovery.

Back with Emilia Achmadi, Clinical Dietitian, Disease Prevention Management, and Sports Nutritionist, in this episode of NalaTalk, we will discuss the importance of vitamins and minerals for young professionals!

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As we herald the New Year 2022, dr. Esther sat down with dr. Catherine Tjahjadi from Triha Clinic in Jakarta. As a practitioner of Functional Medicine, dr. Catherine emphasized the importance of approaching health, not only through pharmacological intervention methods but also through nutrition and lifestyle modification. She explained how each of our needs vary depending on our lifestyle and genetics, thus it is important for us to really understand ourselves. She also shared a brief explanation of the different technologies and services available for us to do so.

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In this Christmas episode, we spoke to Ms. Emilia Achmadi, a nutritionist from Oklahoma State University, about optimizing our diet based on our genetics. She shared a lot about how different people have varying nutritional needs. Not only that, she also emphasized the importance of assessment, including the nutrigenetics test, to provide a more accurate personalized plan and help people understand themselves better. Ms. Emilia expressed her optimism on the future of a genetics-guided nutrition plan.

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We dove deeper into the topic of nutrition this week where we invited our Nala NutriReady™ Product Manager, Astrid Karunia, back as our guest speaker. In this episode, we explored the differences between pharmacogenomics and nutrigenomics, from how drug molecules interact differently from micronutrients, e.g. vitamin and mineral to how applications of nutrigenetics in our daily life. Tune in to find out more about this relatively new field and how you can utilize it for better health!

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With clinical genetics still being a nascent field today, a lot of effort needs to be made by many healthcare practitioners to update their knowledge of the field. In this episode, Fadhli and Esther revisited some fundamental concepts in genetics, particularly its relation to drug action in the body. Basic terms such as pharmacogenetics, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics were explained in this episode and we also touched briefly about nutrigenetics and its recent development.

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Diving deeper into relevant illnesses during the festivities, Fadhli and Esther sat down to discuss gout or hyperuricemia. The condition once dubbed as the "rich man's disease" turned out to have quite a bit of genetic implication, both on the pathophysiology and even on the pharmacogenomics of it. We focused on the important mainstay drug for gout, Allopurinol, and the presence of certain genetic variation that increases the likelihood of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. The episode also spoke about how this condition is markedly higher in certain populations, including Asians.

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With incoming big feasts and hampers as we ushered in the holiday season, Esther and Fadhli are back to having conservations around cholesterol and its impact on our health when it's in excess.

Statins are widely prescribed by doctors to control cholesterol levels within acceptable limits and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. While effective, statins can also cause side effects in some people and we learned how genetic variation in one of the transporter proteins can increase one's risk even further.

Aside from genetic factors, we also discussed other aspects that are usually considered in deciding which statin therapy would be most suitable.

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Continuing on our discussion about mental health, this week we interviewed Kathleen, Nalagenetics' Clinical Research Associate, about her research effort about the pharmacogenetics effect of Schizophrenia medicine. We talked about this ongoing research in collaboration with Rumah Sakit Cipto Mangunkusumo and other public hospitals in Jakarta. Kathleen also shared her discovery about how Asian patients respond to medicine differently from the Western counterpart and how genetic testing could glean useful insights to improve decision making.

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Taking care of mental health is so important! With increasing awareness revolving around mental well-being, we decided to discuss the different aspects of psychiatry, and of course its link with genetics. In this episode, Fadhli and Esther sat down and explored in particular the major depressive disorder, elaborating from diagnosis, management, all the way to prevalence and awareness. We also chat briefly about the unique perception of mental health in Asian society and how we can try to break the stigma.

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Back with another episode where we talk about common use cases in the community. This week, Esther and Fadhli discussed managing stomach pain caused by gastroesophageal reflux disease known as GERD. Some people take medications to relieve the symptoms of GERD and proton pump inhibitor (PPI) is usually the first line of pharmacological treatment. PPI is effective in relieving GERD however in some people with genetic variations, the treatment can be ineffective. Tune in as we dove deeper into how our body metabolizes PPI and how pharmacogenomics tests can help us get the best from our medications.

Learn more about us: www.nalagenetics.com