How Health Food to One Can Be Junk Food to Another

By Alice G. Walton

How Health Food to One Person Can Be Junk Food to AnotherJust as one size does not fit all when it comes to almost any pursuit in life, the same is true for dieting – in fact, nutritionists have observed that what may work for weight loss for one person doesn’t always work for another. And now, a study in the journal Cell begins to figure out why this is the case. It turns out that people metabolize food very differently depending on their individual makeup – and the makeup of their gut microbes. What may lead to a slow, steady rise in blood sugar for one person may lead to a bizarre spike in blood sugar for another. So knowing that foods that are healthy to one person may be unhealthy to another could lead to a fundamental shift in the way dietary recommendations are made moving forward.

Researchers from the Weizmann Institute measured a number of variables in 800 people: From physical measurements to glucose levels to gut microbes through stool samples to blood tests. They sometimes gave people identical meals to measure how each person responded to the same food, and provided them with a mobile app to keep tabs on the foods they were consuming in their daily lives. Their main aim was to monitor how each person’s blood sugar responded after they ate a given food.

As you’d expect, things like body mass index and age affected how people’s blood sugar response. But there were many individual differences beyond those basic variables. For instance, one woman who’d struggled with weight her whole life had a particularly strong blood sugar spike after eating tomatoes, which she regularly ate. Which is all the more bizarre since tomatoes are typically considered a low-glycemic food, meaning that they very definitely don’t spike blood sugar.

“For this person, an individualized tailored diet would not have included tomatoes but may have included other ingredients that many of us would not consider healthy, but are in fact healthy for her,” said study author Eran Elinav. “Before this study was conducted, there is no way that anyone could have provided her with such personalized recommendations, which may substantially impact the progression of her pre-diabetes.”

What this means is that what’s a healthy food for one person may not be so good for another.

To understand more about why these difference exist, the team analyzed stool samples from the participants: They wanted to determine the makeup of their gut microbes and see how it related to glucose response. The team was then able to come up with an algorithm, which could predict how any given person would respond to any given food. They created individualized diets for a group of new participants, and lo and behold, their bodies, including their blood sugar levels after meals, responded accordingly. And over time, their gut microbes also shifted in a similar direction, despite being fed very different diets.

And again, this research expands on what healthcare professionals have already noticed: That not everyone responds the same way to a given diet. And, of course, most anyone who has tried various diets to lose weight can personally attest to that reality. But the new study starts to understand more about why this is true metabolically, and offer some sense of where nutrition might go in the future.

“After seeing this data, I think about the possibility that maybe we’re really conceptually wrong in our thinking about the obesity and diabetes epidemic,” says author Eran Segal. “The intuition of people is that we know how to treat these conditions, and it’s just that people are not listening and are eating out of control—but maybe people are actually compliant but in many cases we were giving them wrong advice.”

Hopefully as more studies like this come out, we’ll understand more about individual differences in dieting. In the meantime, if one diet doesn’t appear to be effective for you, it might make sense to switch to another. Keep in mind that all diets are not created equal, and it may just be a matter of playing around till you find a better match.

Article Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/11/20/why-a-healthy-food-for-one-person-may-be-unhealthy-to-another/

Related Continuing Education Courses

So often, we think of nutrition and its relationship to our bodies from the neck down. How it affects our heart, how it affects our colon, for example. Why do we not acknowledge its impact on our brain health as well? If a patient were to undergo an elective surgical procedure, he or she may be advised to lose weight, gain weight, or avoid certain medications or herbs beforehand. These recommendations are made to help ensure maximum recovery with minimal complications. Why would we not take this approach when dealing with mental illness as well? Shouldn’t we try to achieve optimal nutritional health of the brain if we are trying to heal it?This course discusses how good nutrition impacts a person’s mental health and well being. Includes discussions on “mental wellness” versus “mental illness,” hypothyroidism and it’s impact on mental health, neurotransmitters and amino acids, glycemic index, vitamins, fatty acids, caffeine, chocolate and aspartame, and herbal supplements and medications. Case studies are provided. This course will give the reader some insight into this concept, by providing the student with clinical research, anecdotal information and a good background for understanding the role nutrition plays in mental health.

 

This course is a self-instructional module that “walks” readers through the process of replacing their self-defeating weight issues with healthy, positive, and productive life-style behaviors. It moves beyond the “burn more calories than you consume” concept to encompass the emotional aspects of eating and of gaining and losing weight. Through 16 included exercises, you will learn how to identify your self-defeating behaviors (SDBs), analyze and understand them, and then replace them with life-giving actions that lead to permanent behavioral change.

 

This is a test only course (book not included). The book (or e-book) can be purchased from Amazon. This CE test is based on the book “The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health” (2007, 387 pages). Lifestyle changes, including diet, nutrition, exercise, yoga, and meditation, have been proven in research to have multiple beneficial effects on health, including preventing and reversing heart disease, reducing cholesterol, lowering blood pressure, encouraging weight loss, preventing and reversing type 2 diabetes, and preventing and ameliorating cancer. The Spectrum is a research-based lifestyle change program which has been proven effective for multiple health conditions. This course includes a description of the major components (nutrition, stress-management, and exercise) and mechanisms of action. Research on The Spectrum is also described. The book is accompanied by a guide to cooking, 100 easy-to-prepare recipes from award-winning chef Art Smith, and a DVD which provides instruction in meditation. By taking this course, clinicians will learn how to prevent and treat some of the most troubling illnesses of today through lifestyle changes, while avoiding the need for expensive surgery and medication.

 

Statistics report that Americans are an increasingly overweight population. Among the factors contributing to our struggle to stop tipping the scales is the component of “emotional eating” – or the use of food to attempt to fill emotional needs. Professionals in both the physical and emotional health fields encounter patients with emotional eating problems on a regular basis. Even clients who do not bring this as their presenting problem often have it on their list of unhealthy behaviors that contribute to or are intertwined with their priority concerns. While not an easy task, it is possible to learn methods for dismantling emotional eating habits. The goals of this course are to present information about the causes of emotional eating, and provide a body of cognitive and behavioral exercises that can help to eliminate the addictive pattern.

These online courses are offered by Professional Development Resources, a non-profit provider of continuing education (CE/CEU) resources for healthcare professionals. Professional Development Resources is approved to offer continuing education by the American Psychological Association (APA); the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC ACEP #5590); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB Provider #1046, ACE Program); the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA Provider #3159); the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR Provider #PR001); the Florida Boards of Social Work, Mental Health Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy (#BAP346), Psychology & School Psychology (#50-1635), Dietetics & Nutrition (#50-1635), and Occupational Therapy Practice (#34); the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker & MFT Board (#RCST100501); the South Carolina Board of Professional Counselors & MFTs (#193); and the Texas Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists (#114) and State Board of Social Worker Examiners (#5678).