Rhonda: There is definitely a very personalized response to a variety of different foods. There was this study, I think the Weizmann Institute, I forgot his name but senior author on it. But this was published a couple years ago in cell metabolism where he took 800 people and he put a continuous glucose monitor on them. And then he gave them...there was a variety of foods that these people were given. So they are given simple, you know, sugars, they were given complex carbohydrates, bananas, and they were given like foods that were high in fat.

And then a variety of different genetic variations were looked at. So they looked at a variety of single nucleotide polymorphisms, also microbiome data. And what they found looking at people's glucose response was that people had vastly different blood glucose responses according to their genetics and microbiome.

Elissa: So, important.

Rhonda: So some people, most people had a higher elevated blood glucose level when you're giving them carbohydrates, particularly simple ones, simple sugars, of course. That seems very obvious, right? But there was a subset of people that had elevated blood glucose levels to fat. And that seemed to correlate with various, you know, single nucleotide polymorphisms.

Elissa: And this is a company too, right?

Rhonda: They did start some company I believe. I don't remember what the company was.

Elissa: Yeah, what I've heard is it's probably one of the most sophisticated models out there for this glucose monitoring, but it was developed on Israeli, so it might be really specific to them.

Rhonda: Right? Yeah. And the microbiome also seemed to play a role. And the one thing that was consistent for the blood glucose response was fiber. The more fiber, the lower the glucose response because it slows the metabolism and everything. You're not getting a big bolus. Like you mentioned earlier in the podcast these sugar-sweetened beverages everything hits all at once. I mean, it's like, you know, you're getting a big bolus of glucose and that affects the gut, and you release inflammatory things like, you know, lipopolysaccharide.

Elissa: Right. And so, you know, we've known about fiber, we know how important that is. And the biggest thing we have going against us in terms of what, you know, the public is eating is that that goes against the reward response, right? So all the quicker the brain can get the hit of sugar, the faster it's going to be pleasurable and addictive.