This is a pretty revolutionary study out of the Weizmann Institute of Science. Note: The study only tracked blood sugar levels vs. meal types in 800 people continuously for one week and defined a “good diet” as one which produced steady sugar levels as opposed to a “bad diet” as one which produced elevated levels, because elevated levels are tied to diabetes, obesity and the metabolic syndrome.
They also analyzed gut bacteria types believed to play a role in health and disease.
All foods were recorded as well as sleep and physical activity. So, the researchers analyzed more than 46,000 meals, and interesting results were found:
“The blood sugar levels of a large number of the participants rose sharply after they consumed a standardized glucose meal. In many others, blood glucose levels rose sharply after they ate white bread, but not after eating glucose.” – Isr. 21c
The full paper is here, but you have to pay for the paper (Elsevier Pub.), but you can learn lots at the Personal Nutrition Project’s website here.
You can watch an animation about the research here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryc5M3Ciytg&feature=youtu.be
So…the meal type actually mattered less than the bacteria which lived in the gut.
It turns out that disease prevention might be more dependent on the bacteria and how they interact with the meal types, rather than the meal types themselves, throwing “standardized diets” out the window unless tested against the bacterial population.
The more interesting question might be how these different populations come about in people and what an optimal population might be. Also, which diseases appear to be influenced by these different populations, and how different genetics (human) interact with these populations of gut bacteria.
We’re at the threshold of truly individual treatment, why not individual prevention of the need for treatment to begin with? After all, we all believe that individual behavior in browsing affects computer infection rates, right? Why not the same for people?
Sources:
http://newsite.personalnutrition.org/WebSite/Home.aspx
http://www.israel21c.org/diet-study-overturns-all-we-know-about-healthy-eating/