What Is Personalised Nutrition And Is It The Right Approach For You?
Aug 21, 2024
There are many ways to optimise your health and nutrition these days, from weekly meal plans to 30 day challenges, and now personalised nutrition is all the rage! But what does a personalised nutrition approach involve? Continue reading to learn more!
What is personalised nutrition?
Personalised nutrition can involve a diet, supplement or lifestyle regime targeted to an individuals needs and goals. Some personalised nutrition plans take biometric factors such as height, weight, and dietary requirements into consideration, whereas more advanced personalised nutrition services will involve at-home blood tests, allergen tests, and even continuous blood glucose monitors. The results of these tests are then used to determine what supplements or dietary changes you should make to improve your health. Personalised nutrition is great in the sense that we are all different and we have different nutritional needs, and it empasises that we all need different approaches to be healthy!
How does it work?
Personalised nutrition services will gather information about you to help design a plan that will work for you specifically. They can involve testing such as:
- At-home blood tests, which can show if you have any nutrient deficiencies and determines if you need to take any supplements or make any changes to your diet to increase nutrient intakes.
- Continous blood glucose monitors, which can show how your blood sugar levels change after a meal. They can demonstrate how your body responds to certain foods, and determines if you need to make any changes to your diet to avoid big blood sugar spikes.
- Allergen tests can show if you have any food sensitivities that require you to avoid certain foods.
By taking a range of tests, you can find an approach that works specifically for you and your body, whereas many other diet and lifestyle programmes may be more generalised, and will not take individual factors into account.
Should I use a personalised nutrition service?
If you are concerned that you have any nutrient deficiencies, allergies, or if you have any other health concerns, it is always best to discuss this with your GP as they will be able to offer more thorough and accurate tests than the at-home testing kits can offer. At-home testing kits can show inaccurate or ineffective results if used incorrectly - the tests are also not as thorough as other tests that are carried out by healthcare professionals.
Some personalised nutrition services also use continuous glucose monitors, which is what diabetics use to measure their blood sugar levels. This device can show you how your blood sugar levels fluctuate after meals - however, it is completely normal for our blood sugar levels to fluctuate, and it's completely normal for blood sugar levels to rise after a meal! Unless you are diabetic or your blood sugar levels are of particular concern e.g. because you’re prediabetic, there is no need to use a continuous glucose monitor.
Personalised nutrition services can also be quite expensive, if you’re a healthy individual, it’s simply unnecessary to spend lots of money on nutrition services and supplements that won’t make a significant difference to your health and wellbeing - just try to make healthy and conscious decisions when you can!
The takeaway
Personalised nutrition takes into account an individuals needs, and helps design a specific approach - it can be beneficial as we are all different and will respond differently to dietary changes and supplements. At this time, research on personalised nutrition is limited, because it is fairly new and current studies have limitations such as small population groups - larger scale studies with more participants that run over a longer period of time is needed to determine the efficacy of personalised nutrition interventions. There are lots of ways that we can improve our health, and as fancy as it sounds to get a personalised plan, sometimes small diet and lifestyle changes are enough to make a difference to your health!
