No one good diet fits all

[Saul]

ALL,

 

In the latest issue of Science News online, there is an article that discusses the presence of glucose spikes of four different strains of mice to four different diets: SAD, ketogenic diet, Mediterranean diet, Japanese diet:

 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/no-one-fits-all-healthy-diet-exists

 

There is also a reference to an earlier article describing similar results in humans (comparing glucose spikes of different people to eating cookies versus bananas):

 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/good-diet-you-may-be-bad-me

 

  -- Saul

[Saul]

At CR IX, Prof. Speakman and others discussed the advantages of a keytogenic diet.  So, a few weeks ago, when I had bloodwork done, I added a test for blood keytones (test usually done for some diabetics; abnormally high levels means the diabetic is in ketosis); and it showed that I am in "ketosis" (i.e., that the level of my blood keytones was above the level considered normal)  -- i.e., that I am indeed on a keytogenic diet.

 

 

  --  Saul

[Todd Allen]

I've heard numerous things such as some populations of people tend to lack a gene for digesting lactose or tend to have less adverse impact from eating saturated fat, etc.  And I've largely assumed these things are true without close examination.  It makes sense that people would adapt/evolve over time to thrive on the foods most readily available in their environments.

 

Medical intervention likely slows this process, but given enough time America should be able to evolve people with an almost super human power to thrive on big gulps, supersized french fries and double bacon cheeseburgers.

[Sthira]

I've heard numerous things such as some populations of people tend to lack a gene for digesting lactose or tend to have less adverse impact from eating saturated fat, etc. And I've largely assumed these things are true without close examination. It makes sense that people would adapt/evolve over time to thrive on the foods most readily available in their environments.

 

Medical intervention likely slows this process, but given enough time America should be able to evolve people with an almost super human power to thrive on big gulps, supersized french fries and double bacon cheeseburgers.

I have a strong reaction to coffee, and this is evidently in my genes since the 23me test indicates I'm a slow metabolizer of caffeine.

 

Other foods, of course, probably have subtler positive and negative effects on each and everyone's particular metabolisms, too. But uh nutrition science, such as it is, hasn't progressed much on the personalized diet scene, has it? Not much personalized nutrition options are available -- challenge: go find them, post resources here!

 

Progress in personalized nutrition science for healthy people may be held up in part due to the effects of the financial subsidies received by the makers of "big gulps, supersized french fries and double bacon cheeseburgers..." Stupid fuckers.

 

Why we don't demand subsidies for healthier options -- fruits, vegetables, legumes -- remains a mystery to me. When we're all brought to financial ruin by the public medical prices charged due poor dietary habits -- because of the meat, dairy, and junk food subsidies -- of the "silver tsunami" then maybe nutrition scientists will help progress personalized nutrition. Until then, I guess we're still swimming in shit.

[mccoy]

Individual variabiity is another key issue in nutrition. That's probably part of the cause of widely differing conclusions from scientific papers, aside from the usual biases.

 

The bad news is that the variabiity suggested in the Zeevi et al. article is all but extreme. Personalized nutrition schemes according to these results would appear to be necessary.

Reliable nutrition advise would become sort of a boutique medical practice.

[Sthira]

Reliable nutrition advise would become sort of a boutique medical practice.

Yes, I think so, too, mccoy, a dietary "boutique medical practice" similar to general boutique medical practice for the rich who are able to get the best and latest tech advances because they're just better and more worthwhile people than everyone else. Sarcasm finger pointed upward. But hopefully this will change as with other tech advances where we see the rich get it first as early adopters and then slowly it gets to the rest of us once they figure out how to make the most money out of everyone else. Bitterness finger pointed skyville.

 

Obesity seems to be the focus of most attention in the nutrition world, it seems, and this to me is a straight up political problem -- fat people are fat not because of their "poor choices" as the right says, they're fat because that's one of the ways Wall St can make the most money possible for their own people.

[mccoy]

 

From the posted article:

For 10 of the 12 people, the computer algorithm correctly predicted responses to the good and bad foods. Nutritionists were equally good at predicting how a person would fare on a given diet, the team found. But the computerized approach could reach more people, the researchers say.

 

Now, that algorithm would be a nice toy to play with indeed. I'm going to read that article if available and see if they supply further details-

[mccoy]

I've just been browsing the full article and that's a very interesting one, needs some time though to grasp the fundamental points beyond the wealth of data supplied. As far as I understand, in a longevity-based strategy, we should minimize AUC (area under curve) of blood glucose (which is a proxy of AUC of insulin).

 

http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(15)01481-6.pdf