A new study has revealed that a healthy food for one person may lead to weight gain in another, suggesting that a one-size-fits-all approach to dieting is fundamentally wrong.
For instance, one woman in the study repeatedly experienced a spike in blood sugar after eating tomatoes, which would generally be considered a low-fat, nutritious food. The findings are based a study of 800 people in Israel, the Independent reported.
Lead authors Eran Segal and Eran Elinav of the Weizmann Institute of Science found that different individuals showed vastly different responses to the same food, even though their own responses remained the same day to day.
"There are profound differences between individuals - in some cases, individuals have opposite responses to one another," Segal explained.
The researchers said the findings show that tailoring meal plans to individuals' biology may be the future of dieting and the study yielded many surprises for individuals.
Elinav added that the work really enlightened on how inaccurate people were about one of the most basic concepts of our existence, which is how they eat and how they integrate nutrition into their daily lives.
The study appears in the journal Cell Press.