Inside Your Cells: How Diet Shapes Metabolic Function
December 18, 2025
Saroja Voruganti, PhD, Professor of Nutrition, continues her work building a nationally and internationally recognized research program in nutritional genomics at UNC. She is the co-Director of Precision Nutrition Core at the Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC), UNC Chapel Hill. Her research is focused on uncovering new connections between genetics, nutrition, and epidemiology that can lead to more accurate determination disease risk and new treatment options for metabolic diseases.
Lydia Goss, MS, RD, joined the Voruganti lab in August 2022. She graduated from the University of Tennessee with a BS in Nutrition in 2017 and earned her RD credential in the summer of 2019. Goss worked as a clinical dietitian while pursuing her MS in Nutrition, graduating from the University of Alabama in the summer of 2021.
Obesity is often described in terms of calories in and calories out, but emerging research shows the story is far more complex. In their new review, Nutri-epigenetics of Mitochondrial Function and Energy Homeostasis in Obesity, Lydia Goss, MS, RD, an NRI graduate student, and Saroja Voruganti, PhD, Professor of Nutrition, explore how nutrients influence mitochondria, our cells powerhouses that produce energy for the cell, and the chemical switches that turn genes on and off, known as epigenetic mechanisms. This review article integrates results from animal, cellular, and human studies to illustrate how diet can shape metabolic health. As lead author Goss notes, “Nutrients function as biological signals that helps regulate gene expression and cellular metabolism in addition to providing energy and building blocks for the body.”
The central theme of the paper is how nutrients shape mitochondrial function, the process by which mitochondria convert food into usable energy. When calorie intake chronically exceeds the body’s needs, mitochondria become less efficient, producing more reactive oxygen species—unstable molecules that contribute to cellular stress and inflammation when present in excess. The review highlights evidence suggesting that specific nutrients may help counteract these effects. Vitamins involved in one-carbon metabolism, such as choline and several B vitamins, support DNA methylation, a key epigenetic process that regulates gene activity. These same nutrients also help the body produce antioxidants like glutathione, which protect mitochondria from oxidative damage. Together, these pathways underscore how micronutrients can support both gene regulation and mitochondrial resilience.
The review also summarizes research on vitamin D and vitamin C as modulators of mitochondrial health through epigenetic pathways. Vitamin D has been shown to influence gene expression in energy metabolism and inflammatory signaling, while vitamin C acts as both an antioxidant and a cofactor for enzymes that remove methyl groups from DNA, allowing adaptation of gene expression patterns to metabolic conditions. Evidence from animal studies suggest that vitamin C supplementation may partially reverse obesity-associated epigenetic alterations and improve mitochondrial function, suggesting the potential for micronutrients to influence metabolic regulation.
Dietary fats represent another important layer of epigenetic regulation. The review describes how omega-3 fatty acids— commonly found in fish, flaxseed, and walnuts—help improve how mitochondria function and reduce inflammation. In contrast, saturated and trans fats can trigger inflammatory pathways and alter DNA methylation in ways that impair metabolic health. Collectively, the literature suggests that not only the quantity of fat consumed but also the quality may influence how energy is processed and stored in the body.
Goss and Voruganti emphasize that understanding these mechanisms can help shape more effective nutrition strategies for preventing and managing obesity.
“What we eat has the power to influence our biology at the molecular level,” says senior author Voruganti. “By studying how nutrients interact with mitochondria and the epigenome, we can move toward truly precision-based nutrition interventions.”
Saroja Voruganti, PhD
Professor of Nutrition
By integrating findings across multiple lines of research, this review emphasizes dietary patterns may shape metabolic health through mitochondrial and epigenetic mechanisms, offering a more nuanced perspective on obesity beyond calories balance alone
Goss, L. R., & Voruganti, V. S. (2025). Nutri-epigenetics of mitochondrial function and energy homeostasis in obesity. Genes & Nutrition. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12263-025-00781-w