Healthy foods may not be just as healthy for everyone according to a recent study conducted by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. It may just be that food products are processed differently by an individual’s body and that choosing to only eat low calorie items might not always work if you are trying to lose weight or stay in good shape.
A study recently published in the Cell journal has found that there is a direct link between the dietary habits that people have and their individual glycemic indexes. In other words, the researchers have found that while different individuals eat the same amount of the same food item, their bodies may process the nutrients in that food differently.
More than 800 people participated in the study and were asked to record their daily food consumption by logging in all the items they had eaten during the day into a mobile application. The purpose of this food log was to study the eating habits that individuals had and to factor their dietary needs into the equation.
However, because the research team was also trying to correlate the food intake to the participants’ glycemic indexes, all of the subjects were given the same breakfast menu every day for a pre-determined period of time. The scientists found that although people were eating the same food items in the same amounts at the same time of day, their glycemic indexes varied, which meant that their bodies were processing the food differently.
This, in turn, meant that some people benefitted more from eating certain types of food than others. The study proved that personalized diets which cater to the patient’s individual needs could be a better solution for nutritionists, doctors and patients trying to fight obesity as well as to decrease the risks of life threatening diseases such as heart disease or diabetes.
As it would seem that not everybody can lose a lot of weight by just eating salads, a personalized diet for each patient might be a better approach in trying to come up with a balanced diet meant to help people either lose weight or maintain their desired weight.
Researchers involved in the study have explained that doctors and nutritionists can now focus on the patient’s individual needs and use the medical knowledge that they have in order to formulate a more efficient dietary plan for patients wanting to lose weight, as opposed to resorting to the traditional fat-loss diets that may not always work as well for everyone.
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