Re: Maybe it's not just the calories.... stupid??

[Guest guest]

Interestingly, Dr Francis , who heads NIH these days, was a guest on NPR this a.m to discuss the “revolution in genetic testing” leading to personalizing medical treatment, rather than assembly line care . They mentioned the study that discusses below as an example of such personalizing. The program can be heard here: http://wamu.org/programs/dr/

On 3/4/10 1:12 PM, " john roberts " <robertsjohnh@...> wrote:

A recent report from Stanford University researchers suggest there is a

genetic difference between fat and carbohydrate metabolism between

individuals that affects how they respond to different macro-nutrient

ratio diets.

Reportedly in a study of 138 (overweight) women, women on a low carb

diet with the genetic predisposition to benefit, lost 2 1/2 times as

much as women without the genetic predisposition. Likewise other women

had a predisposition to benefit from a low fat diet.

A separate study mentions it isn't either/or with something like 45% of

(white) women with low carb genotype, 39% low fat. Apparently 3 genes

are involved so probably an even more complex relationship than numbers

suggest.

Caveat, small numbers involved and hard to quantify results, but this

adds some credence to many of our personal empirical experience that we

don't all respond the same to a given diet/exercise regimen.

This suggests more than one possible optimal path for the general

population, and that legislation to ban sugary drinks may be

discriminating against a major fraction of the population, while

calories will still count beyond marginal energy balance situations.

JR