Eat This, Not That: The Surprising Science of Personalized Nutrition
https://gastropod.com/eat-this-not-that ... nutrition/
(The hosts more succinct, less entertaining NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/heal ... -food.html)
The podcast mostly focuses on the travails of participating in the study, with a small dollop of science.
The PREDICT 2 study just released its initial results. I think some of them provide useful insights and cautions as we try to find "optimal" nutrition so that we can postpone AD and otherwise be healthy.
As per https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases ... 060719.php, initial study results include:
- The results reveal a wide variation in blood responses to the same meals, whether they contained carbohydrates or fat.
For example, some participants had rapid and prolonged increases in blood sugar and insulin, which are linked to weight gain and diabetes. Others had fat levels that peaked and lingered in the bloodstream hours after a meal, raising the risk of developing heart disease. - This large variation is only partly explained by genetic factors (less than 50% for glucose, less than 30% for insulin and less than 20% for triglycerides) and there is only a weak correlation between an individual's responses to fat and carbohydrates.
- Identical twins who share all their genes and most of their environment often had different responses to identical foods. The study also finds that identical twins shared just 37% of their gut microbes - only slightly higher than the 35% shared between two unrelated individuals.
- Surprisingly, the proportions of nutrients such as fat, proteins and carbohydrates listed on food labels explain less than 40% of the differences between individuals' nutritional responses to meals with similar amounts of calories. There are also large differences in responses to the same meals depending on the time of day they are eaten.
- The results suggest that personal differences in metabolism due to factors such as the gut microbiome, meal timing and exercise are just as important as the nutritional composition of foods, supporting the idea that simple nutritional labeling is insufficient for assessing food.
- 1,100 UK and US adults (60% twins) were studied for two weeks of regular blood sugar (glucose) monitoring of blood sugar, insulin, fat levels (triglycerides) and other blood markers in response to a combination of standardized and freely chosen meals.
