What is needed is an "Institute of Nutrition"
Dr. Stephen Boyd Recent comments by T. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University, have questioned the validity of isolating individual nutrients from food and conducting randomized clinical trials with them. He states that conducting such trials is a seriously flawed hypothesis and that more effort must be expended in order to understand the breadth and depth of health benefits achievable by nutrition in dealing with the health of the population. Nutrition needs to be looked at in its entirety, not as individual, isolated ingredients. Only then can we understand how nutrition affects, for instance, gene expression. Professor Campbell stated that we have failed to acknowledge this question or sought its answer for far too long because we have failed to understand the scientific fundamentals of nutrition. He added that it is time to recognize the natural and harmonious biological complexity of health processes and choose the lifestyle strategy that best maintains and restores that harmony. He went on to say that it is time we recognize what nutrition can do and a good place to start is to establish a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Institute of Nutrition dedicated for this purpose. These views are certainly consistent with the Mannatech message on nutrition. Foods are complex mixtures of multiple, synergistic ingredients, and it does not make a lot of sense to try to isolate and study the “active ingredients.” Isolating ingredients ignores the obvious; those same ingredients do not work in isolation when consumed. They work in synergy with other food ingredients. Studies should, therefore, focus on the science of how “food” works in supporting health. The same argument can be made for nutritional supplements. They should be derived from real foods and natural products to get the full benefit of the synergy between ingredients. That is the philosophy behind Real Food Technology® solutions. ———- Dr. Stephen Boyd is Senior Director of Medical Affairs for Mannatech, Incorporated. This article was originally posted at HealthyScience.net. Quote | 
