Throughout human history, the diet has been dictated according to geography. When you live in a certain part of the pre-industrialized world, you only have certain foods available to you. And the foods you have available will have a different composition. They’ll have different macro and micronutrients.

Some populations may have eaten more animal products, and some less. Within a given region, it’s reasonable to expect that over generations, people would adapt to tolerate very different nutrient thresholds.

So where your ancestors spent their time has a lot to do with how your body responds to certain foods. One of the best examples I’ve seen yet that demonstrates the immense variability in how people respond to the same foods was a Journal Cell publication that came out in 2015. 

The study looked at the blood glucose responses of over 800 people to fat and carbohydrates. And what the study found is that the blood glucose response varied from person to person based on genetics, their microbiome, and other lifestyle factors like sleep and exercise. 

And not just a little bit… some people had a very high glucose response when eating carbohydrates while others not so much. Dietary fat also had a low glucose response but in some, it caused a high glucose response. 

The Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (or SNPs for short) which determine these responses can change the way your body reacts to various foods like a high-fat diet or a high-carb diet.

Something these responses can even show up on relevant clinical markers like lipid tests that you might get from your physician. SNPs can change how your body absorbs and metabolizes micronutrients, how you respond to certain drugs like statins, and how your body responds to different types of exercise and sleep and so much more. 

So how can you find out how your SNPs affect your longevity and disease risk?

  1. Order a basic genetic test from 23andMe or Ancestry DNA (only the raw data is necessary, so you can get the cheaper one)
  2. Run your raw data through our genetic tool

 But first, be sure to check out this sample of the FoundMyFitness Comprehensive Genetics Report

Source: Rhonda Patrick

at FoundMyFitness.com