No right diet for everyone

[braumeister]

Seems obvious, but an interesting study from a UK university confirms it.

There is no such thing as a healthy diet that will work for everyone. People respond to food in such idiosyncratic ways that everybody needs a personalised eating plan, according to results from a study that looked at the effects of genetics, the microbiome and lifestyle factors on metabolism.

The study fed 1102 healthy people identical meals for two weeks and measured their metabolic responses. These varied wildly, with up to tenfold differences, meaning that a healthy diet for one person could be unhealthy for another. “Everyone reacts differently to identical foods,” says Tim Spector at King’s College London.

This suggests that it would be more effective to design a tailored heathy-eating programme for individuals rather than recommending a one-size-fits-all diet.

 

[ElizabethT]

Article link?

 

[MichaelB]

Article link?

The link is embedded in the text “an interesting study”

 

[ElizabethT]

The link is embedded in the text “an interesting study”

Thanks for that. On my Kindle the hyperlinked text displays in virtually the same color as the non-linked text. (In case others have same issue).

Edit: It appears the article is over my head, regardless. A scientist I clearly am not.

 

[zinger1457]

Were the quotes you provided from the linked article/study? Most of the article is well over my head so I could easily have missed it but didn't see any data or any reference to a 'tenfold' difference in results.

 

[Amethyst]

"People respond to food in such idiosyncratic ways that everybody needs a personalised eating plan"

Do you ever wonder how the so-finicky human race has managed to survive, let alone multiply, without personalized eating plans?

 

[bloom2708]

The tough part is you (we) can eat most anything until a certain point when it catches up to you. Then it is mostly too late.

Is that 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s? Some special folks can eat whatever and live to 100+.

If you have "the signs" high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, overweight BMI, that should be a sign that what you are doing isn't working.

I have family members get to "too late" in their 50s, 60s, 70s. By that time, food is so ingrained in every aspect of daily life that changing is very hard. Certainly not impossible, but people don't want to change. People don't want to be told to eat this and not that. Even if death is looming.

Think politics and religion are controversial topics? Try food. Gulp.

 

[braumeister]

Were the quotes you provided from the linked article/study? Most of the article is well over my head so I could easily have missed it but didn't see any data or any reference to a 'tenfold' difference in results.

The quotes were from an article in New Scientist magazine reporting on the study. I couldn't include too much due to copyright restrictions, and it's behind a paywall for most, but here is the article:
There is no perfect diet that works for every metabolism or body type

 

[Helen]

I totally believe this. I've followed a whole food, plant based diet for 8 years and feel fine. I have friends who want to follow a vegetarian diet but become anemic on it.

 

[razztazz]

"People respond to food in such idiosyncratic ways that everybody needs a personalised eating plan"

Do you ever wonder how the so-finicky human race has managed to survive, let alone multiply, without personalized eating plans?

By and large people never lived long enough for any of this to matter. The act is humans did not eat a pale diet in the olden days. Nor did they eat a lot of carbs everywhere they went. The ate whatever the hell was their. Usually unless they were very fortunate, they ate monotonous diets. The all meat diet. All bugs diet, the all low-hanging-fruit-diet. The all nuts diet.

These idiosyncrasies probably helped humans survive because no matter where we were or what was available it was a bad diet for some people and quiet a good diet for others. No tribe ever got entirely wiped out due to suboptimal diet and everybody starving to death based on suboptimal dietary components was not as likely.

 

[Amethyst]

I have a relative, age 70, who has been fat all her life (she says "fat," not obese or overweight). Her build is naturally endomorphic and she's always disliked exercise for its own sake - although she is in all other ways an industrious person. At this point she has so many health issues that exercise isn't possible any more.

She has been on diabetic medications since early 40's and is very strict about taking medication and testing her blood all day. She knows the right things to eat, but says that dieting to lose weight is almost impossible, because of the blood sugar swings it causes. I believe her. What she says, may sound like excuses to some people, but it is true for her individual metabolism.

Perhaps she could have saved herself by making lifestyle changes while it was still possible (20's? 30's? 40's?). Then again, what if her "chosen" lifestyle was the only one possible for her individual makeup?

The tough part is you (we) can eat most anything until a certain point when it catches up to you. Then it is mostly too late.

Is that 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s? Some special folks can eat whatever and live to 100+.

If you have "the signs" high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, overweight BMI, that should be a sign that what you are doing isn't working.

I have family members get to "too late" in their 50s, 60s, 70s. By that time, food is so ingrained in every aspect of daily life that changing is very hard. Certainly not impossible, but people don't want to change. People don't want to be told to eat this and not that. Even if death is looming.

Think politics and religion are controversial topics? Try food. Gulp.

 

[bloom2708]

I have a relative, age 70, who has been fat all her life (she says "fat," not obese or overweight). Her build is naturally endomorphic and she's always disliked exercise for its own sake - although she is in all other ways an industrious person. At this point she has so many health issues that exercise isn't possible any more.

She has been on diabetic medications since early 40's and is very strict about taking medication and testing her blood all day. She knows the right things to eat, but says that dieting to lose weight is almost impossible, because of the blood sugar swings it causes. I believe her. What she says, may sound like excuses to some people, but it is true for her individual metabolism.

Perhaps she could have saved herself by making lifestyle changes while it was still possible (20's? 30's? 40's?). Then again, what if her "chosen" lifestyle was the only one possible for her individual makeup?

Would probably have to know what she is eating. I bet she isn't counting calories and in a calorie deficit. It is rough out there.

 

[LOL!]

I didn't read the article, but I can write that not only are people different when it comes to a nutritional personalized diet, the genes expressed of various proteins in their different metabolic pathways and tissues will also mean that whatever is considered a nutritional personalized diet one month could be quite different another month.

Or to put it bluntly, if this study was conducted with the same people again after they had been habituated to the diet given, the results would probably be wildly different than what showed up in the first study. Two weeks is not nearly enough time for a body to adapt and there was no control for what the test subjects had been doing before the study.

I suppose some long-range studies are done on a handful of astronauts.

 

[Walt34]

I want the gene set that makes chocolate mint ice cream a nutritional diet plan....

 

[braumeister]

whatever is considered a nutritional personalized diet one month could be quite different another month.

You may be right. I found one of the points in the article to be really interesting:

The volunteers included several pairs of identical twins and even they showed very different responses to the same meal.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

Scientists say I am 96% chimp and 3% Neanderthal, ..........I'll have the grilled plantains with a side of Mastodon.

 

[RAE]

I don't doubt that what the article says is correct. However, I think virtually everyone could benefit in some way by eliminating (or at least minimizing) the amount of highly-processed junk foods they consume. That stuff is not healthy for anyone, IMO. Stick with real/whole foods (whatever real/whole foods that you enjoy) and you will probably be healthier.

 

[bloom2708]

Michael Moss wrote a book title "Salt, Sugar, Fat" from 2013.

It is a little dated now, but if you like non-fiction reading it is pretty interesting.

He follows the big food industry in how they find the "bliss point" for salt, sugar and fat in combination in processed food. Fascinating.

If you lower the salt, that "warmed over" taste that you get when you reheat meat comes out in all the processed food.

The industry is killing the people that eat the food, but they cannot reduce the content without killing sales.

I got the book as a white elephant gift and read the whole thing. It doesn't suggest what to eat at all. The author does ask some of the execs what they eat. Not the food they sell in most cases.

The "bliss point" is real and takes no prisoners. Or at least doesn't leave them alive.

 

[Amethyst]

I remember reading about that book. It's the same with restaurant meals, which are so salty, I can't stand most of them any more. When we were on a cruise, we were able to instruct the kitchen to prepare our meals without salt. We then added a little bit at the table, same as we do at home. It was amazing how delicious that freshly cooked, little-salted food tasted.

If you lower the salt, that "warmed over" taste that you get when you reheat meat comes out in all the processed food.

The industry is killing the people that eat the food, but they cannot reduce the content without killing sales.

I got the book as a white elephant gift and read the whole thing. It doesn't suggest what to eat at all. The author does ask some of the execs what they eat. Not the food they sell in most cases.

The "bliss point" is real and takes no prisoners. Or at least doesn't leave them alive.

 

[tmm99]

I don't doubt that what the article says is correct. However, I think virtually everyone could benefit in some way by eliminating (or at least minimizing) the amount of highly-processed junk foods they consume. That stuff is not healthy for anyone, IMO. Stick with real/whole foods (whatever real/whole foods that you enjoy) and you will probably be healthier.

Virtually everyone. The inventor of instant ramen (which is deep fried in shelf-stable oil) died at 96. He was said to have eaten his*instant ramen every day*for decades, till the day before he died.

 

[Speculator]

Well, what the article reports may be true, but I am skeptical of any research whose authors work for a company which has a vested financial interest in what they report. In this case, it seems the study's primary authors all are consultants or work(ed) for Zoe Global, LTD, a company which appears to specialize in creating individualized nutrition plans.

https://joinzoe.com/

 

[dadu007]

I *had* a work colleague who was obese and smoked since he was a teenager.
He went to the doc at age 51 (last year) and was diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic. A1c was like, 10.
On his own, he immediately went on a keto/low carb diet and 6 or 7 months later he had lost 80 pounds and his A1c was 5.5. He had discipline when when it came to food!

Two months ago he literally dropped dead of a heart attack at age 52. I just keeping thinking about how a change in diet was just too little too late. He smoked until the end. He probably tried quitting 3 times in the 7 years I knew him. Just couldn't kick that habit. He was a social butterfly, had lots of friends, drove Uber for the fun of it. What a guy. He had plans all the time!

 

[6miths]

Who woulda thunk it? There are, however, countless healthy diets for any given individual thank goodness.

 

[Pellice]

I too believe in finding one's own way through the diet forest. But, how to put that into action? Something I've tried is asking myself about the easiest ways forward for me; that is, what is easy to change or eliminate? Breakfast would NOT be easy for me to eliminate - in fact, I hate doing without food. Fasting, intermittent or otherwise, is out for me. But it was easy to eliminate virtually all fast foods. It was relatively easy to ban potato chips and ice cream (both of which I love) from the house. It was easy to work more vegetables into my diet, although they often ended up in casseroles with some now suspect ingredients, such as white rice (I still eat it) and butter (I still eat it).

So, I think the starting point for anyone looking to change his/her diet would be to ask "what would be an easy change for me to make?" Maybe it would be to eliminate breakfast, or cut out dairy. But to start there, not to start with someone else's recommendation.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

I agree with Pellice, do the easy changes first. Do not start with someone else's recommendation.

Things that worked for me:1) Started off with one of those weight loss/deliver food to your house programs. This worked, but once I educated myself on healthier alternatives, I didn't need it anymore. 2) Made exercise a frequent - almost daily thing. Mostly cardio but an adequate level of strength training. 3) Log everything in MyFitnessPal - a free app. Yes it has a premium. At the end of the day, I know where I stand and whether I should eat stalks of celery or splurge and have a Klondike bar. 4) Cut out fast food. 5) At times cut out alcohol. 6) Cut out nuts and other high calorie items. Many of which have other health benefits, but way too many calories.

As always, YMMV

Forgot to say, I am a CICO guy. Calories In need to be less than Calories Out (CICO). I do not follow any other guidelines. If I want my 2000 calories to be from rhubarb pie, so be it. In practice, the amount of vegetables i consume is jacked way up to keep me full.