One Paragraph on Personal Blood Sugar Responses | One Paragraph Science

A new study conducted by the Weitzmann Institute of Science has shown that personal reactions to food in individuals blood sugar levels are highly individual. The researchers monitored 800 people for a week (that's over 46,000 meals!). "We chose to focus on blood sugar because elevated levels are a major risk factor for diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome. The huge differences that we found in the rise of blood sugar levels among different people who consumed identical meals highlights why personalised eating choices are more likely to help people stay healthy than universal dietary advice." Prof Eran Segal and Prof. Eran Elinav commented on their research in Cell journal. Blood sugar, if abnormally high, is a risk for diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome. Personalised  eating choices are more likely to help people stay healthy and on track with their blood sugar and medication; compared to universal dietary advice. The scientists created/designed an algorithm for predicting individualised responses to food based on the person's lifestyle (a person's lifestyle is particularly important to follow because it's significant to know if the food was followed directly by either sleep or exercise), medical background and the composition and function of his or her microbiome.  Testing this theory on a further 100 volunteers, proved that their algorithm was successful and worked for each individual. Professors Segal and Elinav are currently working on recruiting new volunteers who are in a high-risk group for developing diabetes. They aim to be able to prevent or delay the onset of the disease.

A Video Animation Describing The Study Here.

REFERENCES:

Weizmann Institute of Science. "Blood sugar levels in response to foods are highly individual." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 November 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151119143445.htm>.

1. David Zeevi, Tal Korem, Niv Zmora, David Israeli, Daphna Rothschild, Adina Weinberger, Orly Ben-Yacov, Dar Lador, Tali Avnit-Sagi, Maya Lotan-Pompan, Jotham Suez, Jemal Ali Mahdi, Elad Matot, Gal Malka, Noa Kosower, Michal Rein, Gili Zilberman-Schapira, Lenka Dohnalová, Meirav Pevsner-Fischer, Rony Bikovsky, Zamir Halpern, Eran Elinav, Eran Segal. Personalized Nutrition by Prediction of Glycemic Responses. Cell, 2015; 163 (5): 1079 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2015.11.001