We can all agree that what we like to eat is a personal
preference, and we also generally know what is a healthy food and what isn’t. However, in the most recent issue of Cell two Israeli research teams have
demonstrated that there can be significant physiological difference between
individuals when eating the exact same food.
As we all know, after you eat a meal, your blood glucose
levels go up. Using a derived glycemic index we are able to guesstimate a
person’s post-prandial glycemic response (PPGR). These glycemic estimations are
based entirely off the innate, chemical makeup of the food you’re eating and
those estimations are what you use to calculate your daily food intake. What
researcher David Zeevi found, along with another team, is that various factors
such as genetics, activity levels, insulin sensitivity, and intestinal microbiota
had varying effects on PPGR levels in individuals eating the exact same food.
Over the course of a week, and with 800 participants,
Zeevi’s research teams were able to collect 1.6 million measurements of
interstitial glucose levels and subsequently devise an analytical algorithm to
determine the difference in PPGR between individuals eating the same food. One
example is of a woman, who after eating a tomato (undeniably a healthy food)
had her blood glucose rose to an unhealthy level, while in other participants
there was no dangerous spike. This example, along with many more, demonstrated
that while you can make an estimate of a food’s effect on an individual, there
are far more factors in play than just what chemicals are present. This
research shows that in order to accurately determine what foods are best for
you, a personalized diet that accounts for individual glucose response to foods
is needed to reduce your risk of high post meal glucose levels.
No comments:
Post a Comment