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Nutrimatters supports Actionable Knowledge in three different ways through our Programs, Courses, and Articles because everyone has different learning preferences. The Courses approach is for people who like to watch videos and take online courses. The information is much the same as the Articles just presented in a video course format, which includes progress monitoring and optional testing and certification. Unlike Articles, Courses require being signed in. Nutrimatters uses VPortal™, an online video course system used by major universities to avoid tracking, advertising, and paywalls.
Nutrimatters translates scientific papers into layperson online video Courses to make advanced research available to a broader population. We typically start with a peer-reviewed paper from a top-tier journal. Since not all research is created equal, we look for confirmation bias, conflicts of interest, data manipulation, the statistical version of cooking the books, synchrony with other science, and more. Then, we avoid as much scientific language, footnotes, citations, etc. as possible because while all that seems impressive, it just makes it harder to learn. But you can see where it all comes from on our Research page. Next, we connect the dots by combining knowledge from multiple papers around topics optimized for learning and decision-making. Finally, we practice what we teach.
If It's Only Temporary, Then It's Not A Cure.
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Course 1
Temporary vs. permanent changes everything.
Temporary vs. permanent changes everything.
It all begins with understanding the difference between permanent and temporary weight loss. They are totally different processes that must be addressed differently. Avoiding and reversing obesity and metabolic disease results from permanent change, not temporary change. Temporary change is about looks, permanent change is about life.
Counting Calories Adds Up To Failure.
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Course 2
Physical & behavioral reasons this doesn’t work.
Physical & behavioral reasons this doesn’t work.
Nutrition and weight loss are rare industries that thrive with a low single-digit success rate. It makes sense to look for new approaches when the current approaches have such a low success rate. Virtually every current weight-loss program one way or another counts calories. While the physics of calories in calories out is right, the body fools you about the numbers.
It's About Know Power, Not Willpower.
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Course 3
What's character got to do with it? Nothing.
What's character got to do with it? Nothing.
It's not about character. It's all about learning how the body works, and how it processes food throughout the day. In fact, relying on willpower very rarely works for long. Weight gain is a symptom of metabolic dysfunction, not the cause. You can no more will-away fat than you can will-away a runny nose when you have a cold.
You Can't Defeat Hunger, So Outsmart It.
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Course 4
Hunger can't be avoided, but it can be minimized.
Hunger can't be avoided, but it can be minimized.
You cannot defeat hunger using willpower, but with know power, you can outsmart hunger. Humans evolved in constant food scarcity. Getting food was hard and dangerous. Over the millennia, the body developed several very potent hunger generating systems. If you understand these systems, you can better control them.
Cellularly, You're Only Half Human.
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Course 5
52% of the cells in your body have no human DNA.
52% of the cells in your body have no human DNA.
The cells of microbes processing food in your digestive system outnumber your human cells. There are thousands of non-human species of microbes in incalculable combinations, each unique to the individual and having a different effect on the body. We know now that non-human microbes drive most of our body chemistry.
Your Cells Don't Have A Mouth.
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Course 6
All cell nutrition must pass through the cell wall.
All cell nutrition must pass through the cell wall.
All food must be reduced to a few select molecules that can pass through cell membranes to nourish the cell. No matter what you eat, it must be reduced to a few amino acids, micronutrients, oils, and glucose. Reducing the complex molecules of food to these few simple molecules is the job of the microbes in your gut.
If It's Not Protein Or Fat, It's Sugar.
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Course 7
All sugars, starches, & fibers must be reduced to glucose.
All sugars, starches, & fibers must be reduced to glucose.
When not talking protein or fat, we use terms like sugar, starch, and fiber, but cells can only use glucose. Glucose is the simplest sugar. All sugars, starches, & fibers must become glucose before the cells can use it. From the point of view of cellular nutrition, all foods that are not protein or fat, are a simple sugar named glucose.
You Breed What You Feed.
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Course 8
Life thrives where it gets lots of its favorite foods.
Life thrives where it gets lots of its favorite foods.
The success of populations of digestive system microbes are determined mostly by what you feed them. You can support healthy microbes, and crowd out unhealthy microbes by the right food choices. But a lifetime of food choices creates a population of microbes unique to each individual.
Meet Your Essential Organ, The Bioreactor.
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Course 9
Trillions of microbes create essential chemistry.
Trillions of microbes create essential chemistry.
The digestive system is thought of as a tube where nutrients soak into the body. NOT! The small intestine is one of the most complex and biologically significant organs in the body. At 22 feet long (6.7 meters), and 320+ sq. ft. (30 sq meters) of surface area, with trillions of embedded microbes, it is the body’s energy reactor.
When You Become The Infection.
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Course 10
Gut dysfunction causes the body to attack itself.
Gut dysfunction causes the body to attack itself.
Systemic inflammation, the root cause of many diseases, is the body attacking its own cells. A major cause is a failing gut membrane that allows microbes out of the gut, triggering an immune response. Once the immune system identifies one of your cells as a threat, it may attack it for the remainder of your life.
Do You Know You Have A Second Brain?
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Course 11
There are more nerves in the gut than the brain.
There are more nerves in the gut than the brain.
There is a second nervous system in the body with more nerve cells than the brain. This “second brain” is the nerves of the digestive tract. The brain’s nerves need 8-hours sleep, why not the second brain’s nerves? Yet we keep the second brain up all night with late eating, since it works for 6 hours after we last eat.
It's About the Liver... Stupid!
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Course 12
The liver removes the bad stuff, nuff said.
The liver removes the bad stuff, nuff said.
A US Presidential Candidate famously Said “It’s the Economy... Stupid.” Yeah, it’s the same with the liver. Certain foods cause the liver to replace liver cells with fat cells, diminishing its ability to filter the blood. As waste products accumulate in the blood organs are damaged, disease begins, and you feel lousy making you sedentary.
Eating Bad Food Impacts More Than Eating Good.
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Course 13
Avoid what’s toxic to you and your microbes.
Avoid what’s toxic to you and your microbes.
Eating the healthiest foods doesn’t necessarily offset the harm of eating unhealthy ultra-processed foods. Complex sugars, preservatives, additives, emulsifiers, and certain oils are much more harmful than previously thought. Many food are threshold toxins, safe up to a certain level where the become harmful.
When Is As Important As What You Eat.
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Course 14
The impact of food changes by time of day.
The impact of food changes by time of day.
The same food and calories eaten at different times of day have very different effects on the body. Like the hormones that affect sleep change from day to night, so do the hormones that affect digestion. As a result, foods eaten in the day are processed differently than those eaten at night.
6 By 6 Is The Fix. Yeah, It’s That Simple.
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Course 15
Life is a batch process. Adjust your schedule to it.
Life is a batch process. Adjust your schedule to it.
The right daily eating cycle is the single most impactful thing you can do to avoid obesity and metabolic disease. It’s what you do every day to accommodate that cycle that counts. The modern world may be full of continuous processes such as machines and computers, but life is a batch process.
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