This is Scientific American 60 Second Science.

I'm Cynthia Graber.

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High blood sugar levels are a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

Doctors today have only general dietary recommendations

for how to control those levels because there's no real way

to predict what's called the post-prandale glycemic response,

that is just how your particular blood glucose level will be affected by what you eat.

But a new study may be the start of making glucose controlling food recommendations more personal.

Scientists in Israel followed 800 non-diabetic adults over one week, checking their blood glucose

levels every five minutes.

The participants got a full medical workup, including a stool sample to analyze their

gut microbiome.

The participants logged the food they ate, their exercise, and their sleep.

They chose their own food except for one meal a day,

which was one of four standardized options.

The result...

The blood sugar response of different people to identical meals can be hugely different.

Iran Segal of the Weizman Institute of Science.

Segal and his colleagues found that one person's blood glucose might spike in response to a particular

food, while that same food would actually lower another person's.

The study is in the journal Cell.

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