Human postprandial responses to food and potential for precision nutrition
Berry and colleagues fed identical standardised meals to a thousand twins and unrelated adults and measured what happened in their blood afterwards, then validated the findings in a separate American group. The headline is the variation: responses to the same meal differed enormously between people, most of all in blood fats, and substantially in glucose and insulin. What explains that variation differs by measure. For the fat response, person-specific factors including the gut microbiome mattered roughly twice as much as what was in the meal. For the glucose response, the composition of the meal mattered more. Genetic differences contributed modestly throughout, which is striking given that identical twins were included. The authors built a model predicting individual responses, more successfully for glucose than for fats. The practical implication drawn is personalised dietary advice, and it is worth noting the study's connection to a commercial venture in that field.
Berry and colleagues fed identical standardised meals to a thousand twins and unrelated adults and measured what happened in their blood afterwards, then validated the findings in a separate American group. The headline is the variation: responses to the same meal differed enormously between people, most of all in blood fats, and substantially in glucose and insulin. What explains that variation differs by measure. For the fat response, person-specific factors including the gut microbiome mattered roughly twice as much as what was in the meal. For the glucose response, the composition of the meal mattered more. Genetic differences contributed modestly throughout, which is striking given that identical twins were included. The authors built a model predicting individual responses, more successfully for glucose than for fats. The practical implication drawn is personalised dietary advice, and it is worth noting the study's connection to a commercial venture in that field.
Written from the abstract, Europe PMC.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
26, 964-973. A publisher's correction exists. Same ZOE conflict. Sarah Berry is first author.
Where we use it
- Why You Are Hungry an Hour After a Big Lunch, Why We Crave
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0934-0
DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-0934-0