Multi-omics and Why You Should Care
Multi-omics
Some words in English are just fun: oocyte, omics, shenanigans… well you get the idea.
As you work on your health, it is good to have at least a passing knowledge of some concepts that will help drive your self-care and professional care if needed. One of these is multi-omics, AKA multiomics, panomics or pan-omics.
A lot of biological words end in ‘ome” so when we talk of multi-omics, we are trying to understand a problem using tools such as genome, epigenome, proteome, microbiome and others.
Studies have gone in this direction because some health problems we face are a combination of genetic and environmental factors. We then have to look at the clinical picture, check the genetic factors and then try to understand which environmental factors might be contributing.
Some examples of problems that can benefit from this multi-faceted approach include: type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, Alzheimer's, systemic lupus erythematosus, certain cancers, some neurologic disorders, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.
Allergies have recently been brought into the world of multi-omics. Amish kids have a lower rate of allergies than other similar religious groups and more traditionally raised kids.
The big difference between the Amish and Hutterites (similar ancestral backgrounds) was the exposure to animals and barn dust. The Amish are exposed very early in childhood and the Hutterite kids don’t get exposed to the barn and everything that goes with it until they are around 12. Of course, most kids growing up in the US, Canada or Europe are rarely exposed to this type of environment.
The assumption is that the microbial environment of the barn stimulates a protective response to allergens in the Amish. If this can be verified over time, it may be beneficial to expose young children to an inhaler or other method of a cocktail of these microorganisms. Which organisms to use could easily depend on the genome and now you have a microbiome and a genome and therefore, multi-omics.
The goal is to understand more specifically each patient so the treatment can be better targeted.
Much of the progress seems to be mostly in the research stages as I write this but with a little persistence by the research community and with proper funding, some of these advances may arrive in time to be of value to you.
Some years ago I used a genetic tool to better understand my own genome and learned that I don’t have a very good detox system. That is useful because with today’s knowledge of physiology and the process of detox, some dietary supplements can be a big help. This also helped me understand which supplements should be helpful and which could slow down some systems.
After analyzing different genetic profiles, we found that most people do well with some basics l
like vitamin C, vitamin D, EPA/DHA, melatonin and NAC with maybe some ALA and cysteine too.
You can find a list of some our favorite supplements in the following blog. Supplements We Take 2025
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2025