Why that miracle diet might not work

Experts also said official weight-loss advice may not help as many people as hoped.

Experts also said official weight-loss advice may not help as many people as hoped.

Published Aug 1, 2016

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London - If the latest diet craze has no effect on you, you’ve probably got the wrong DNA.

For when it comes to losing weight, there are no one-size-fits-all instructions, and different diets suit different people depending on their genetic make-up, scientists say.

This means that while the latest miracle diet might help your friend drop a dress size, it could well be a fat lot of good for you.

Experts also said official weight-loss advice may not help as many people as hoped. Researcher William Barrington told a US conference: “There is an over-generalisation of health benefits or risks tied to certain diets.

“Our study showed that the impact of the diet is likely dependent on the genetic composition of the individual, meaning that different individuals have different optimal diets.”

Dr Barrington, of Texas A&M University, fed mice one of five different diets for six months, including a typical Western diet, a traditional Japanese diet, a Mediterranean diet, a high-fat low-carb Atkins-style diet or normal mouse food.

Importantly, he used four different strains of mice, to mimic the genetic differences in four unrelated people.

All were allowed to eat as much as they wanted and their meals were made as realistic as possible, with rice and green tea extract part of the Japanese diet and red wine extract included in the Mediterranean plan.

Tests showed their health varied widely, with some strains faring better on some foods than others.

For instance, while a fatty, sugary Western diet fuelled obesity, the severity of the weight gain depended on the strain of mouse. One lucky strain even seemed immune to the effects of eating badly, the Allied Genetics Conference in Florida heard.

Plus, some mice were healthier on everyday Western food than on the plan similar to the Atkins-style diet.

Dr Barrington said: “It is likely that the diversity of diet response seen in our study will also be observed in humans. We’ve largely viewed diet the same way for 100 years – assuming that there is one optimal diet.”

He said it might eventually be possible to identify the best diet for a person by giving them a genetic test.

But in the meantime, Dr Barrington added, we shouldn’t use his results as an excuse not to diet. Instead, we should persevere and if the first diet we try doesn’t work, try another one.

He said: “One should be open to changing diets if the results are not as expected. Moreover, one should probably take a friend’s advice with a grain of salt when they say, ‘This diet is great, you have to try it!’.

“A diet may be great for one individual, but terrible for another.”

Matthew Capehorn, of the Rotherham Institute for Obesity, agreed, saying: “The secret to successful weight loss is to find what works for you.”

Daily Mail

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