| My suspicion is that most of the population does not react too strongly or fast to a suboptimal diet, hence the general softness of this topic. But maybe a certain percentage does, and i consider myself one of them. It could well be that those who do are on the brink of a deficiency, but i'm not sure about that. My experience, and there was i time i was really into this, doing interviews with mostly young people. The results fit the assumptions of William L. Wolcott very well, that most people basically fall into 2 groups, fast and slow metabolizers. They differ significantly when it comes to digestion. One group needing more of certain minerals then the other when eating the same foods (potassium making the biggest difference as far as i remember).
I remember often guessing correctly what type of water brand people would prefer based on this (chosing between 2 favourite sources, one with high potassium content. the sample size was small, but i'm really sure you can replicate this). If this is due to genetics or due to gut microbes or both at the same time - i really don't know. So, i think that the macro level does differ between people. That every person needs an individual mixture of nutrients to keep the metabolism in balance. Btw, you can modify your metabolism bye eating differently and the body can adapt for a long time before any clinical symptoms show. Wolcott explains the differences between those 2 groups in the following way: either the sympathetic nervous system or the parasympathetic nervous system is stronger and determines your metabolic type. And those systems can again be influenced by the environment (climate, food availability etc.).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_nervous_system As i could use his theory to predict food preferences, i never questioned the basic premise. Would be interesting to do some more digging again. |