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Health

Is personalised nutrition better than one-size-fits-all diet advice?

Our metabolism's response to food is highly idiosyncratic and there are hints that tailoring our diet to these personal differences can deliver health benefits

By Graham Lawton

30 October 2024 Last updated 8 November 2024

PRD023 Freshly baked bread on sale at a farmers' market.

Each of us has a different metabolic response to eating the same bread

Matthew Ashmore/Alamy

Consider two slices of bread, one from an artisanal sourdough boule, the other from a cheap, mass-produced white loaf. Which do you think is healthier?

The correct answer is that you don’t know until you try. Some people will have an unhealthy reaction to the cheap stuff, with surging blood sugar levels. But others won’t, and instead have a sharp rise in blood sugar after the sourdough. Some will surge on both, others barely at all.

This article is part of a series on nutrition…

Article amended on 8 November 2024

We have removed a quote that we misattributed to Regan Bailey

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