Phytochemicals, pharmacogenetics and pharmacokinetics

When one appreciates the extensive range on interactions that exist between phytochemicals essentially entering our bodies through our diet, and the various processes involved in host protection, it becomes very clear that dietary modifications of pharmacokinetic process should be a relative given in our understanding of drug ADME. In fact it should be a central theme in our understanding of interindividual and interpopulational variability in drug behaviour, rather than just being accorded the occasional consideration as a determinant of drug behaviour.

As a corollary, pharmacogenetics cannot hope to fully explain the pharmacokinetic behaviour of any drug in an individual. Environmental chemicals, largely phytochemicals, modify pharmacokinetic processes according to the genetic constitution of the individual, while the genetic makeup of the individual can only be fully expressed in response to environmental chemical effects.

Which leads us to automatically consider what the epigenetic mechanisms might be, in shaping the PK environment of the individual. Perhaps these might be more important than the occasional loss/gain of function variants that we find in the population.