Personalized diets may alleviate elevated glucose levels

When two people follow the same weight-loss diet to the letter, but one fails to lose weight, the problem might be their bodies' different responses to the same foods, a recent Israeli study suggests. The researchers looked at the glycemic index (GI), the one key component that diets such as Atkins, Zone and South Beach all have in common.

The researchers - who were led by Eran Segal and Eran Elinav - found that healthy diets vary from person to person, reports KSTP Nov. 22.

Based on the data they received, the researchers developed an algorithm that predicts how an individual will respond to food, based on their lifestyle, medical background and the composition of their microbiome.

In the first leg of the study, the researchers used a glucose monitor to measured glucose levels of 800 healthy and prediabetic individuals every five minutes for one week, collecting a total of 1.5 million measurements.

In addition, they asked participants to eat similar meals for breakfast each day. They tested the accuracy of the algorithm in a follow-up study involving 100 volunteers and found that it correctly predicted the volunteers' blood glucose responses to certain kinds of food. The researchers found that if individuals are eating foods that give their bodies a blood sugar spike, then the body increases the amounts of insulin produced. But, the data also revealed that different people show greatly different responses to the similar food, although their individual responses did not alter day to day.

"In contrast to our current practices, tailoring diets to the individual may allow us to utilize nutrition as means of controlling elevated blood sugar levels and its associated medical conditions", says Elinav, of Weizmann's Department of Immunology.

The results of the individualized feedback were surprising.

"Diet should always be considered as a whole", Taylor noted.

Spikes in blood sugar responses were recorded for the bad diets while levels remained stable for those on the good diet. "Before this study was conducted, there is no way that anyone could have provided her with such personalized recommendations, which may substantially impact the progression of her pre-diabetes". Interestingly, although the diets were personalized and thus greatly different across participants, several of the gut microbiota alterations were consistent across participants. When they recommended meals with foods they knew wouldn't raise blood sugar for each person, the people did indeed have lower blood sugar levels after meals.

"I think about the possibility that maybe we're really conceptually wrong in our thinking about the obesity and diabetes epidemic", Segal says. The findings are based a study of 800 people in Israel, the Independent reported.