PREDICT 2 Study Update
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Have dietary changes after the study made any difference? Yes, they have!
Picture Credit: Beach Walk, by Pino Daeni (http://www.masergalleries.com/pino.html)
So no report yet from the PREDICT 2 study attempting to personalize my results, but that’s not unexpected. As near as I can tell, they are still enrolling the study. Hopefully, they get some appropriately timed US patients, because folks’ response to Thanksgiving should be some interesting data.
That said, I have made one major dietary adjustment over the past several months based on my interpretation of the real time blood glucose data (How To Be A Guinea Pig). You can find my initial reactions and observations there as well.
So over the past two months, I have ruthlessly eliminated artificial sweeteners of any kind. I felt my results on PREDICT 2 (that I could see) were conclusive in showing that if I ate anything with an artificial sweetener on board, my blood glucose response pattern was too close to insulin resistance for comfort. That’s not a good thing for my long term health. Since completing PREDICT 2, I can think of only one time I had an artificial sweetener, and only because I knew I wouldn’t be having anything else at all for at least 4 hours. Without any other food intake, there would be no chance to spike my glucose into that insulin resistance pattern. Or at least that’s how I rationalized my one transgression. I have no data behind it whatsoever, and my rationalization makes some assumptions on how long that artificial sweetener, and its effect, would last in my system. For instance, I don’t know for sure if 4 hours was enough to clear the sweeteners and/or its insulin resistance effect. But I figure one dose of the bad stuff in a very rare moon while mitigating damage as best as possible was not likely to hurt too much.
In the meantime, all other aspects of my diet have remained steady. No other significant changes in what or when I eat, or my level of physical activity.
My weight on the scale has not appreciably changed since cutting the artificial sweeteners.
However, since stopping PREDICT 2 (and stopping artificial sweeteners), my body composition has changed. On three separate occasions in the last couple weeks people who have not seen me in person much since starting PREDICT 2 commented that I look much leaner. Out of the blue–I haven’t asked any of them, and only one knew I was on the PREDICT 2 study at all. I have lost at least an inch, possibly two, off my waist–challenging the fit of pants, but in a good way.
Now, before you go cutting artificial sweeteners hoping for the same effect, a note of caution. Like I mentioned in the previous post describing PREDICT 2 and its rationale, what works for me diet-wise may or may not work for you.
For example, a meta-analysis of available prospective cohort and randomized clinical trials suggests that artificial sweeteners are associated with a significant, but modest reduction in waist circumference (See Figure 3C for graph: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4135487/). In other words, your average person, by using (NOT eliminating) artificial sweeteners to cut calories, would expect to reduce waist circumference.
This highlights the reason for PREDICT 2—my individual response is very different from the average response in those clinical studies! For me, STOPPING the use of artificial sweeteners (while keeping calories the same) has been reducing my waist circumference.
This is also an important note on interpreting clinical trial data in general. A lot depends on how similar you are to the patients who were on the study, and what the results tell you is what the average results of patients will be. This sets the ballpark expectation for you, sure, but your individual results may vary. So for instance, if you are reasonably similar to patients on a blood pressure medication study, and they took the drug, and dropped their blood pressure 20 mmHg, you should expect to have about a 20 mmHg drop. But, your drop will most likely be around that average a bit. Could be 15. Could be 25 for you. Or you could be in that group of patients (every study has them) who just didn’t respond well at all.
So a good rule to keep in mind when you read any sensational headline about the latest and greatest drug/gadget/diet in health is to first ask: how similar am I to the people on this study? If you’re not very similar to them, the results are less likely to apply to you. If you are similar to them, then odds are good the results will apply to you — but your individual results may still vary.
Hence, the drive for better biomarkers and personalization of medicine. The hope is to better predict how a diet/drug/device is likely to work for you a little more specifically than approximation from a group of people broadly similar to you in a clinical trial. PREDICT 2 is a good illustration of this effort. We’ll see how close they come when I get their report. If there is anything else diet-wise I can test drive, I will, and will report back any changes I notice as a result.