On Bluesky, someone asked a question about what the worst nutrition advice was. A respondent (a woman of Asian descent, I believe) posted that she thought the animosity toward “white” food was terrible, since her family ate white foods all the time. I think she meant rice and possibly potatoes.
Of course, I posted back that all that food did for me what explode my blood sugar and make me hungry. Which is true.
But this got me thinking: why it is like this? Can two people eat exactly the same thing (and - gasp! – the same calories), yet get two different results? I knew from studies with CGMs that this was possible, but there seemed to be something more that was missing.
Then this study came out, where they put African American women on two different diets: high carb; or low carb. There was a difference in fat loss, depending on whether the women were more or less insulin sensitive.
Some quotes:
I have always had questions about why one person can have 1 piece of pizza and get “full”, why I could have 3 and want 5. If I produce a higher insulin response than they do, then my carb calories are immediately getting put into fat cells (or muscle cells if I’ve exercised), and I have no energy. Meaning I’m hungry. It’s Richard’s idea of the hungry fat man.
To me, these types of studies help answer those questions. Some people really can eat carbs and be “full”, while others, like me cannot. And this means that two people eating exactly the same calories will lose or gain weight, and/or have higher or lower energy output, due to their insulin sensitivity/resistance, which is in part due to genetics.
This makes sense to me.