It turns out that there may be a scientific explanation as to why the latest fad diet works for your best friend, but not for you. Israeli researchers—writing in the journal Cell—found that different people’s bodies respond very differently to eating the same food. So food that is healthy for one person may not be healthy for everyone. In fact, so-called “healthy” foods may even be making some individuals fatter.
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The study, called the Personalized Nutrition Project, used health questionnaires, body measurements, blood tests, glucose monitoring, stool samples and a mobile-app to analyze about 50,000 meals eaten by over 1,000 participants. What they found was that everyone essentially has their own personal Glycemic Index (the grading curve that measures a food’s effect on blood sugar levels).
For example: One middle-aged woman with obesity and pre-diabetes was struggling to lose weight even though she ate a “healthy” diet. In her case, the culprits were tomatoes, a normally very nutritious fruit. But for her, it caused her blood sugar to spike, despite the fact that tomatoes do not contain that much sugar.
With information from the study, the researchers were able to come up with an algorithm that takes hundreds of factors about a person and turns them into a tailor-made meal plan. Some meals plans even allowed alcohol, chocolate and ice cream—in moderation, of course.
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The team of researchers is working to improve the algorithm by collecting more detailed information about volunteers’ physical activity, the bacterial strains in the gut, and even their genetics. They are also running a longer study to see if the personalized diets concocted by their algorithm can, over the course of a year, improve the health of pre-diabetic people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
While no one can say for certain how far we are from widespread personalized nutrition analysis, between this latest research as well as recent computer programs, it seems we may not be that far off.
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Curated article from:
Washington Post
The Atlantic
