The way your body responds to the food you eat is different from that of other people, a new study conducted in Israel revealed. Researchers said that if we were all given the same meal to eat, the body's process of metabolism would vary among individuals.
Eran Elinav and Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute of Science looked into how the similar kinds of food affected different individuals. They wanted to examine the levels of postprandial blood glucose in individuals, or the levels of blood glucose after they had eaten, and how it varied. High levels of blood glucose indicate the risk for obesity and diabetes, experts said.
In a report issued in the journal Cell, the researchers gathered data from 800 participants who were not diagnosed with diabetes. Some were considered pre-diabetic. The participants answered health questionnaires, underwent blood tests and physical measurements, had their glucose levels monitored and their stool samples collected. They were also given a mobile app to record their food intake and lifestyle. Overall, the data on about 46,900 meals were examined by the researchers.
Glucose monitors on the participants measured their glucose levels every five minutes. This occurred throughout the whole week of the study.
The participants ate a consistent meal every morning and saved the details into the mobile app. The researchers then provided the participants an analysis of their responses to the food they consumed.
A person's body mass index (BMI) was linked to the levels of blood glucose after meals, researchers said, but the findings of the study showed that individuals experienced varied bodily reactions to the standardized food.
Segal explained that when individuals were given bread to eat, some had no significant change in their blood glucose levels, while the others had very high reactions. He said that the same thing happened to any food they provided.
Nutrition experts and doctors currently use the glycemic index to rank foods based on how they affect levels of blood glucose in the body. But the new study suggests that a personalized approach may be more effective than a universal dietary recommendation.
"Most dietary recommendations that one can think of are based on one of these grading systems," said Segal. However, he said that people do not highlight the significant differences in the responses of individuals to food.
"This is really a big hole in the literature," added Segal.
Meanwhile, the researchers are planning to examine a long-term dietary intervention in Israel to focus on people with consistently elevated levels of blood sugar who are significantly at risk for diabetes.
