Welcome to Nutrition Advance.
My name is Michael Joseph (@nutradvance) and as the founder of Nutrition Advance, I just wanted to explain what this website is about, how to use it, and what the aims are.
Content
Firstly, the aim of this website is to provide accurate, simple-to-understand information on a variety of foods and nutritional topics in an accurate, balanced, and evidence-based manner.
What does ‘evidence-based’ mean?
Evidence-based is an often misappropriated term, especially in the world of diet books and nutrition articles. This term does not mean simply supporting your opinions with a scientific study reference.
Unfortunately, it is easy to find studies (of varying quality) that support almost any given assertion, and simply looking to prove what you already believe is known as “cherry-picking.”
Cherry-picking is sadly very common, and many people are biased toward a particular diet or way of eating.
Instead, ‘evidence-based’ should mean that we analyze the totality of the evidence, pick out the valid benefits and drawbacks of particular foods/diets, and summarize the potential pros and cons in an objective and bias-free manner. In this context, all nutritional claims should be supported with scientific evidence from peer-reviewed studies.
In other words; to provide reliable and trustworthy information, it is important to look at both sides of the story.
The truth is that no food (and no diet) is solely good or bad, and such nuance can seem rather boring. But controversy sells, and answers such as “it’s complicated, but….” aren’t quite as popular as unique positions and bold claims.
Nutrition Advance does not advocate for or push any particular way of eating, and we believe in the “no one-size diet fits all” approach.
In every article, you will find numerical links to supporting studies in parentheses (1) like this. I encourage you to click through to the studies if you wish to learn more or see evidence via the primary literature.
Wherever possible, these supporting references will be to the highest quality evidence; systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials.
Nutrition Advance has no products to sell, we accept no money from industry, and we are not sponsored in any way or form.
Purpose
The sole aim of Nutrition Advance is to provide accurate and reliable information on nutritional topics.
Nutrition is such an important topic, and there is a lot of misinformation out there. For this reason, Nutrition Advance aims to offer an alternative to all the marketing-led and biased websites in the online nutrition space.
Nutrition Advance aims to distill nutritional information into a friendly format and summarize the take-home points in an objective, bias-free manner.
Advertising Policy
Nutrition Advance articles may feature ads, which are managed and selected by an advertising agency. These ads provide funding to help in the running of the website, but in no circumstances do they influence editorial content.
Being funded by ads in this way allows Nutrition Advance to operate independently; the website sells no product, pushes no particular foods or diets, and has no external influences on editorial content.
About Michael Joseph
Most of the articles on Nutrition Advance have been written by Michael Joseph.
Nutrition is both his professional interest and personal passion.
Michael work as a nutrition educator, and holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical Nutrition (and a further Master’s in Nutrition Education). Over his years of working in community education programs, he has seen first-hand how useful information presented in the right way can be.
Trustworthy Content Policy
In our commitment to provide trustworthy content, Nutrition Advance has a strict focus on backing up all claims with the highest quality of scientific evidence.
Evidence will always be provided for all nutrition facts and claims via references to peer-reviewed studies.
Wherever possible, we strive to look at the highest level of evidence from systematic reviews and double-blind randomized controlled trials.
Studies from observational trials, feasibility trials, and animal and cell studies are also important to analyze, but they are a weaker type of evidence, and will be declared as such.
Why is the quality of evidence important?
First, because many claims about nutrition use evidence that has been taken out of context.
For example, a small trial using cell cultures or mice might show that high-strength extract of a compound synthesized from fruit has a beneficial effect in fighting a certain health condition. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the whole fruit has the same benefits as a high-strength extract.
Furthermore, just because a trial shows an effect in cells or mice does not mean that we would expect to see the same effect in human trials. Therefore, randomized controlled trials—studies that actually test a theory on human participants—are the most accurate evidence for determining cause and effect.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are also very reliable as they aggregate, examine, and help to communicate the totality of the evidence.
Feedback
We encourage feedback on our articles.
Is there something useful that we could add to make it more informative? Is there something you feel isn’t quite right?
Leave a comment or contact us – debate is very much welcomed.
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