Last Updated on September 24, 2016 by Patricia Carter
Summary: Can we really use food as medicine? This is the question Professor Helen Truby and her team at the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Monash University seek to answer in a new 3 week, FREE online course offered by the department.
The course? Food as Medicine, and I’m attending!
When? 3 week course begins Monday, May 2, 2016.
I hope you take advantage of this opportunity and register here for the FREE Monash U online Food as Medicine course as well!
Equally important… share the opportunity please!
I am hoping we’ll learn:
I am also hoping that the material will be consistent with the summary of the interesting patterns emerging from the American Gut data presented from Dr. Rob Knight’s talk, Saturday, October 18, 2014, as documented in this post, as well as The American Gut website, and the Preliminary Characterization of the American Gut Population PDF. Food-wise, the repeat seems to be:
- Eat lots of plants: 5 to 30 different varieties each week preferably. Eating 5 to 10 each week is good, but eating 30 plus different varieties is best.
- Alcohol: One drink is helpful, more than one reduces diversity. Alcohol imbibers tended to have greater microbial diversity than those that don’t drink alcohol at all.
- Spikes in microbiome populations seem to occur around holidays: in July, and in November through January. Is it what we eat????
Dr. Knight did caution that what has been shown thus far to be most beneficial for the microbiome is preliminary.
Way too many are needlessly suffering from chronic disease and autoimmunity.
Check out the epidemic on the below slide. While there are many red flags behind this swing, the only thing you have no control over is how you were born, and how you were fed, which both are major determinants of your microbiome. But understanding the power of diet and lifestyle factors that nudge the microbiome towards health is empowering, and many are doing just that! If you are new to this, the Monash University class may help get you up that learning curve quickly! I am hoping it teaches the latest information including the “Meet the Fats” series that you’ve read:
- Type of fat consumed and breast cancer diagnosis for Mediterranean Diet,
- Soybean Oil, Corn Oil, Diabetes, and Metabolic Syndrome [and IBD], and
- Meet the Fats & Best Salad Dressing Oil, Part 1.
Why am I sharing this course? Because it is by Monash University, and I’m hopeful the course is progressively current with the microbiome science.
Monash University is the creator of the “Low FODMAP Diet” book and app (by Sue Shepherd and Dr. Peter Gibson, MD) that many of you use to tweak the healing diet tenets to individualize intolerances. While the “Food as Medicine” course looks to not be specific for FODMAPs, it is hard to imagine (since it is evidence based) that microbiome and diet impact won’t be discussed. From the course description:
“This course will have broad general interest appeal to everyone interested in food, nutrition and health; but will be of particular interest to healthcare professionals who are looking to learn more evidenced-based information to assist them in providing food-based recommendations to their patients. This course is designed for anyone with an interest in food, nutrition and health and does not require previous knowledge or experience in science or health studies.”
It will be great to see how they address microbiome and food, how far into the three plates they’ll dive, and maybe they’ll introduce a fourth plate!
Join me and sign-up! It might just change the way you look at food! Or we’ll all realize how far behind Monash University is in their Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, in which case, I totally apologize for sharing this course! But if that happens, you’ll also realize how far behind your doctor likely is too!
Updated for SEO optimization. Last updated: September 24, 2016 at 20:20 pm
Best in health through awareness,
