The right food for you

Scientists are continually learning more and more about the ways in which our gut bacteria (microbiome) affect our health. Now they are trying to individualize this information by pinpointing  the health effects of particular foods eaten by particular people, assuming bacteria are accomplices. Case in point: cardiologist Dr. Eric Topol participated in a two-week experiment in which a smartphone app tracked every morsel of food he ate, every beverage he drank, and every medication he took. He submitted a stool sample to get a reading of his gut microbiome and wore a sensor that monitored his blood-glucose level. All of this information was analyzed by artificial intelligence which produced an algorithm that showed the effects of the foods he ate.

Basically, he learned which foods (and the bacteria’s actions on those foods) created spikes in his blood-glucose levels. These spikes, which are thought to be an indicator of diabetes risk, are the first objective proof that people respond differently to eating the same food. In collecting billions of data points on thousands of people, researchers have found that more than a hundred factors are involved in glucose spikes (glycemic response). Surprisingly, they learned that food was not the key determinant. Instead, it was the gut bacteria. (It should be noted that a substantial portion of healthy people have high glucose levels after eating.)

Dr. Topol was surprised at the outcome of his test as shown by glucose spikes. He got an A for cheesecake, but C- in whole-wheat fig bars; an A+ for strawberries but a C in grapefruit; an A+ for mixed nuts, but C for veggie burgers; A+ for bratwurst, but C- for oatmeal.

Obviously, the takeaway from such studies is that there is no such thing as a universal diet—one that is right for everyone. Our bodies, and especially our microbiomes, are simply too complex. For one thing, we harbor 40 trillion bacteria and 1000 species in our guts—probably unique mixtures of these critters in every person. Dr Topol, for example, has way more Bacteriodes stercoris than the general population. In comparison, my most abundant bacteria are in the Prevotella bacteria family.

As to the right food for you: you’ll probably never know.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.