Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut

Alisa Fominykh
Mr. Ippolito
Biology 10H D Odd
June 6, 2017

Saey, Tina Hesman. "Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut."ScienceNews. N.p., 6 June 2017. Web. 6 June 2017. <https://www.sciencenews.org/article/choosing-white-or-whole-grain-bread-may-depend-what-lives-your-gut>.

This week I read the short article titled “Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut” by Tina Hesman Saey in which she covers the health responses of various individuals to a variety of bread types. This article surprised me since for years we are taught that whole grains are a significantly healthier alternative to refined or white grains however this article calls that belief to question. The experiment behind this article included 20 individuals who ate white and whole wheat sourdough bread who had their blood sugar levels studied. The average results proved no significant changes however the impact each bread had on a person individually was much more noticeable on a molecular level. Depending on the individual the blood sugar levels unexpectedly increased more prominently with a certain type of bread. Further findings then connected the spike in blood sugar with which microbes were present within the stool specifically bacteria called Coprobacter fastidiosus and Lachnospiraceae bacterium. However, it is still unknown how they exactly alter blood sugar levels.
These results are important since they further support other data from experiments world wide that nutrition advice and diets should be fit to the individual rather than to society as a whole. I chose this article since I only eat whole wheat bread due to the deep rooted teachings that it is healthier than white bread; however after this article am now wondering if my actions of doing so are instead harming my blood sugar as opposed to maintaining it at a balanced level. This also calls to question how other healthy foods may not be ideal for every individual despite what the media tells us.

This article was very informative however it was short thus giving it a feeling of lacking in sufficient information. However, the knowledge which was provided was presented in an easy to read and interesting matter which is vital to engaging the reader. Although the article was short it can be argued that it being so was convenient since it was not a hassle to read or understand. Finally I think the author could have mentioned more about other indications of nutrition needing to be personalized and used examples to further her point.

5 comments:

  1. Katie Formato
    Mr. Ippolito
    Core Biology Honors
    September 13 1018

    Saey, Tina Hesman. “Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut. “Science News. N.p., 6 June 2017. Web 13 September 2018.
    https://www.sciencenews.org/article/choosing-white-or-whole-grain-bread-may-depend-what-lives-your-gut

    A former student in Mr. Ippolito class Alisa Fominykh wrote a review on the article “Choosing white or whole-grain bread may depend on what lives in your gut,” written by Tina Hesman Saey from Science News Magazine. Alisa did a excellent job in summarizing the article. I think Alisa did a great job taking an article that did not have that much information and taking it to the next level. By doing this Alisa was able to make a summary that had a lot of information but she still made it easy for the reader to understand. Alisa started this article by thinking what she learned when she was younger, “ For years we are taught that whole grains are significantly healthier… to white grains.” Now she even questioned the article, thinking is this even true. I enjoy that Alisa added this in her summary because she did not just talk about bread but she also question healthier foods, and if the media is telling us the truth. I also enjoyed how Alisa provide scientific evidence to back up her claim.
    Although Alisa wrote a concise and clear summary of her article, there were a few things that I think she could have added. I enjoyed how Alisa provided events to support her position, I wish there were a few more pieces of evidence. It would have been helpful if Alisa referenced a study that had more than 20 people in it. I thought this piece of evidence was very intriguing but after I wish that there was more data to back it up. Additionally, Alisa could have explained the effects of high blood sugar levels and how they are harmful to people. Alisa talked about high blood sugar but she did not explain what it is and why it is harmful. She was assumed that the reader knew about high blood sugar and its effects. However, I think Alisa still wrote a well-composed review.
    Alisa picked a great article because it made the reader really think and question everything that they have been told is healthy. I really learned from this article, not to believe everything the media is telling us. My life will definitely change after this article because now I am really going to think about if what I am eating is actually healthy and good for me.

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  2. Selin Ozaltin
    Mr. Ippolito
    Core Biology
    13 September, 2018
    Saey, Tina Hesman. "Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut."ScienceNews. N.p., 6 June 2017. Web. 6 June 2017. .
    This week, I chose Alisa Fominykh’s review on the article “Choosing white or whole-grain bread may depend on what lives in your gut”, written by Tina Hesman Saey. This article covers the effect different types of bread have on different peoples bodies. This was done by having the blood levels tested of twenty people who ate white and whole wheat sourdough bread.When examined, there was a pattern of people’s blood sugar levels increasing after consuming white bread compared to whole wheat sourdough bread. While for others, the opposite was true. The message behind this article and this experiment is that nutritional advice should be individualized. Alisa states, “This article surprised me since for years we are taught that whole grains are a significantly healthier alternative to refined or white grains however this article calls that belief to question.” and I agree. One of the reasons I chose this review is as Alisa stated, because I also was taught that whole wheat bread was the healthier option when compared to other types of bread. But the data stated in the article proves that that might not be the case for everyone. This review was simple and easy to understand. There was a good explanation of what the article itself was about and then a good summary of what the reader could take away from the piece of writing. The body paragraphs were well formatted, meaning they were. As a reader who doesn’t have any prior knowledge on the topic I was able to clearly understand what the article was about and why it was written. Though this was a well written review, there is always room for improvement. One thing that I believe could help a reader understand this article more is if there were a few, or at least one quote from the article. It could be a quote from a medical professional, the author, etc. This could help the reader understand what was behind the writing of this article. Another aspect that could be improved is that the conclusion is slightly repepative. A conclusion is what a reader will take away after reading your writing, and if it is repepative it could be confusing. A way to fix this is to maybe read through your writing one more time to see if there are any more important points you could restate that the reader should acknowledge. In the end, these are minor improvements that could be made to have an overall better piece of writing. This article and review gave me new insight on nutrition advice and a different variety of bread types. I am left questioning whether whole wheat bread is the healthier option for my health specifically, even though it is for most people. I chose this article because I found the topic intriguing and fascinating. This has changed by understanding of well known health advice and bread in general.

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  3. Ted Conway 9/15/18
    Core Bio FaC-Odd Current Events 1

    Saey, Tina Hesman. "Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut."ScienceNews. N.p., 6 June 2017. Web. 6 June 2017. .

    Alisa Fominykh, a former core biology student wrote a response to an article titled, “Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread may Depend on What Lives in your Gut,” by Tina Hesman. The article revolves around the statistics that different types of wheat have on the human body, especially blood sugar. Alisa did a good job summarizing and explaining the main gist of the article and her views and opinions on the matter. Her article review opens up with some background info relating to her mindset prior to reading Hesman's article. She stated, “This article surprised me since for years we are taught that whole grains are a significantly healthier alternative to refined or white grains however this article calls that belief to question” (Fominykh. p.1). This line from the review shows that prior to reading Tina’s article, Alisa had always believed that whole wheat grains were without a doubt healthier than white grains. However, the review also includes data that proves the differences between white and whole wheat grain. Alisa states how different bread types can affect different peoples blood sugars in different ways, however a trend was not found and breads effect on blood sugar still remains mostly unknown. Alisa chose to include this because it nullifies the previous belief that white grain is unhealthier than whole wheat. Alisa also includes a line which states, “This also calls to question how other healthy foods may not be ideal for every individual despite what the media tells us” (Fominykh p.1). This line is prompting readers to stop and think about the impact certain foods other than bread have on their bodies. This is included to raise questions and see if any other food stereotypes (such as whole grain vs white) are wrong.
    Though Alisa’s review was thorough and easily understandable, she does have some room for improvement. For example, when she stated, “This article was very informative however it was short thus giving it a feeling of lacking in sufficient information” (Fominykh p.1), I feel as if she should of given some examples of what other information the article should of included. To fix this, Alisa should have done some further research on her own to find out the missing pieces in the article which she could then use in her review. Another thing Alisa could have done better was expand on the results from the article’s experiment. Alisa briefly went over the effects bread has on the body and did not explain it very well. When she said, “Further findings then connected the spike in blood sugar with which microbes were present within the stool specifically bacteria called Coprobacter fastidiosus and Lachnospiraceae bacterium” (Fominykh p.1), I was instantly intrigued by the bacteria however she never mentioned it again. I feel like she should have expanded on that and explained what those two different types of bacteria were and what they did.
    Alisa Fominykh’s review of the article, “Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut,” leaves readers with important information and acts as a learning experience as well. Alisa chose this article because for her whole life, she believed whole wheat bread was much more healthy than white bread. However after reading Tina’s article, her eyes were opened and she was exposed to data that proved her lifelong belief to be somewhat wrong. This article has had little impact on me however, I could care less about the type of bread I eat and what it does to my body. However, after reading this review, I now have a different perspective on the foods I eat and the stereotypes that come with them.



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  4. Olivia Conniff
    Mr. Ippolito
    Bio 10H
    10/2/18

    Saey, Tina Hesman. “Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut. “Science News. N.p., 6 June 2017. Web 13 September 2018.
    https://www.sciencenews.org/article/choosing-white-or-whole-grain-bread-may-depend-what-lives-your-gut

    I chose to read a review of the article “Choosing white or whole-grain bread may depend on what lives in your gut”, written by Tina Hesman Saey by Alisa Fominykh. This article talks about a test that was done by having the blood levels of twenty people who ate white and whole wheat sourdough bread examined. When examined, there was a pattern of people’s blood sugar levels increasing after consuming white bread compared to whole wheat sourdough bread. While for others, the opposite was true. By talking about this test in the article, the author was able to effectively explain the effects that different types of bread can have on people's bodies. The author of this article’s aim was to say that nutritional advice should be aimed towards individual people and not just the general population, because different people have different bodies and different ways of reacting to the things they put into their bodies. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this review because it was very easy to understand, using simple, but not boring, words and phrasing. Alisa explained very well the purpose of the article as well as a description of what the reader should take away from it. I was able to clearly understand what the article was about and why it was written despite the fact that I had no knowledge on the subject. This review was very well done, however I do have a few suggestions as for how to improve it. First, I found that the review was a bit repetitive. Because of this, it tended to be confusing at times, and harder to comprehend. A way to fix this is to make sure everything that you are writing is essential to the review, if it is not it can be removed, to help keep the article from being too repetitive and confusing. Also, I think that if a few quotes from the article were included in the review the reader would be able to better understand it, and see it from a different perspective. From this article I learned a great deal about how nutritional advice works and about different varieties of bread and how they can affect people. It made me realize that whole grain isn’t always the best choice, even though that is what we have always been taught. I chose this article because it changed my perspective on whether I should just blindly accept advice given to me about nutrition.

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  5. Teddy Wardell
    11/6/18
    Bio C Odd
    Current Event #7

    Saey, Tina Hesman. "Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut."ScienceNews. N.p., 6 June 2017. Web. 6 June 2017. .

    For this week's Current Event assignment I read Alisa Fominykh review on the article, “ Choosing White or Whole-grain Bread May Depend on What Lives in Your Gut," by Tina Hesman Saey. This article describes how white bread may be better for people than whole-grain bread. This article goes in to detail to more detail on how blood sugar does not get increased in the molecular level when people eat white bread and this was proven in a study where 20 people ate white bread and another 20 people ate whole-grain bread. I think that Alisa did a very good job writing this article and did numerous things to improve the text. For example, Alisa had a lot of details in her article which helped make it easier for the readers to understand and made the article much more interesting to read. Alisa also did a great job in grabbing the reader's attention. She did this by stating interesting facts which benefited the article. This his helped the reader not get bored while reading. Another thing that Alisa did well was give a strong opinion on weather or not she thought the article was good. She said that she enjoyed the article and we can tell from her response.
    Alisa had a very solid article. However, I would have added some things to the text to make it even better. First, Alisa had some grammar mistakes such as missing punctuation. This could have been easily fixed by proof reading the paper or using an application like grammarly to check the work. Another, thing that I would have changed is having a bit more explanation in the final paragraph. This would help the reader understand why you liked or disliked certain aspects of the article.
    I thought that this article was very interesting and I learned a lot from it. I had always thought that white bread was much worse for the body compared to whole grain bread but this article showed me that I was incorrect. I found this interesting because most people think that white bread is horrible for you. Overall, I thought that this article was very well written and was very insightful.


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