Foods that make some of us put on weight can have little effect on others, according to research being carried out in Israel. It might be time to rethink the way we diet, writes Dr Saleyha Ashan.

Like most of the population, I must admit that I am on an eternal quest to lose weight. For me it’s more to do with concerns about health than aesthetics. I have polycystic ovary syndrome and a family history of type 2 diabetes and that puts me into a high risk category for developing diabetes myself.

I have always watched what I eat – and yet I never seem to shift the weight, while friends seem to eat what they want without putting on a single bulge. It seemed like they could just “break all the rules”. But perhaps that’s just because we have been wrong about what “the rules” of diets are.

Last month, I travelled to Israel for Trust Me, I’m a Doctor to take part in a vast new research study being carried out there by a team at the Weizmann Institute of Science. They are in the process of monitoring 1,000 people in absolutely minute detail to see exactly how their bodies react to food – and their first results are rewriting the textbooks on our relationship with food.

When we eat, our blood sugar level rises – and both the speed at which it peaks, and then how quickly our bodies deal with that and get it back to normal, is very important to our health. Constant high spikes can lead to type 2 diabetes, as well as us laying down more fat and increasing our risk of other diseases.

Foods have, therefore, been traditionally classified by how much of a blood sugar spike they cause – with “high GI” (Glycaemic Index) foods being thought of as bad for us, and “low GI” as good. Every nutritionist would tell you this. But the Israeli research, led by Dr Eran Segal and Dr Eran Elinav, suggests that it is simply not so.

Source: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight? – BBC News