Diet Roulette

Eat right so your pants won’t be tight!

This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, asking, but how?

From Atkins to South Beach to vegan diets, new diet trends never stop! But all have mixed reviews. Is there a healthy meal plan that works for everyone?
William Barrington’s team from Texas A&M University wondered. So they recruited mice from four different genetic groupings. They fed them foods that mimic the most popular human diets. So which one succeeded?

None! The so-called ‘healthy’ diets, such as the Ketogenic style, worked well for two of the genetic groups. But it increased body fat in the others. Mediterranean and Japanese diets also had mixed results across the groups. The clear loser? American-style food. It induced negative health effects on all the mice.

So a diet that makes one person healthy may have the opposite effect on another. It seems the best diet could be dictated by your genetic makeup. Next, the researchers will look into exactly which genes are responsible.

But until then, we might need to go pants shopping.