Nutritional Biochemistry
Long-form mechanistic write-ups — evidence graded, conflicts of interest disclosed, contrary findings engaged rather than smoothed over. Not medical advice.
What metabolic health actually is, what breaks it, and the order in which to fix it — the framework and protocol that the mechanism deep-dives below plug into. Opens with a short, shareable list of easy changes.
Read the paper →Oxidative mechanisms linking excess seed-oil linoleic acid to cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, obesity, and cancer risk. A plain-language primer on fat chemistry, evidence graded throughout, and a full answer to the strongest counterargument.
Read the paper →How one transcription factor links gut permeability, tryptophan metabolism, seed-oil oxidation, hyperinsulinaemia, and B-vitamin status to the circadian collapse of NAD⁺.
Read the paper →The acute, insulin-independent glucose-disposal effect and the adaptive, batokine-mediated systemic effect — plus the thermogenic, mood, and immune effects that build on them.
Read the paper →How mitochondrial dysfunction may drive the cancer cell’s signature behaviours — and why treating it as primarily a genetic disease has stalled progress for two decades. Drawing on Seyfried’s metabolic model with evidence graded throughout.
Read the paper →Concedes that apoB is causal, then argues the harder point: that a population-level cause makes a poor individual-level target. Absolute vs relative risk, the mevalonate pathway beyond cholesterol, and the harms sorted honestly — diabetes yes, muscle pain mostly not.
Read the paper →Sunlight is eight overlapping exposures, not one — the same UVB band that mutates skin-cell DNA also drives the vitamin D and immune pathways ecologically linked to lower rates of over a dozen other cancers. Worked through band by band, then against three human studies on melanoma survival, all-cause mortality, and cancer incidence.
Read the paper →Greying is melanocyte stem cells running out; baldness is mostly DHT sensitivity, with shedding as the nutritional exception. What has actually reversed grey hair, early baldness as a marker of insulin resistance, what DHT and oxidised fats do to the follicle, and which nutrients and compounds actually help.
Read the paper →How alcohol injures the liver, how fast it recovers once you stop (liver stiffness falls within a week), and why the dietary fat eaten with it matters in animal studies. A 12-item "protect your liver" list checked item by item: coffee and thiamine hold, TUDCA and resveratrol don't, and high-dose taurine made alcohol injury worse in mice.
Read the paper →Aerobic fitness and strength each predict mortality on their own, and no single kind of exercise builds both. Walking for volume and post-meal glucose, intervals for VO₂max and mitochondria, lifting for muscle and bone, and what blunts the training effect (statins, metformin, vitamin C+E, ice baths). Plus a Siim Land HIIT-vs-lifting post checked against its study.
Read the paper →Natural GLP-1 lasts two minutes and works mostly in the gut; semaglutide was re-engineered to last a week and reach the brain's appetite centres. Why it's so good for visceral fat, insulin sensitivity, liver and heart, what it leaves untouched (muscle, gut lining, linoleic acid, the drive that returns when you stop), and what fast fat loss releases: pollutants, linoleic acid, and lead from bone.
Read the paper →How glucose, fat, and protein all funnel into acetyl-CoA and the Krebs cycle, told through flow diagrams — and the small set of B-vitamin coenzymes (TPP, FAD, NAD⁺, CoA, PLP, biotin) that run the whole system. Background for everything above.
Read the primer →The nutrient-level detail that Metabolic Health deliberately keeps out: mechanism, deficiency effects, intake, food sources, and citations where they exist, one page per nutrient.
Browse the index →Herbs, capsules and isolated compounds evaluated one at a time for whether they earn a place at all — evidence graded, with practical notes on form, dose, and sourcing. Creatine, NAC, Black Seed, Mastic Gum, Milk Thistle, L-Theanine, BPC-157 and more.
Browse the index →Juices, teas and one dessert — things you’d eat or drink anyway, checked for what they actually do. Beet Juice, Pomegranate, Orange Juice, Citrus Peel, Green, Assam and Pu-erh Tea, Chamomile, and Ice Cream.
Browse the index →Start from what you want to fix. Short guides that rank what to do, show how it works in one picture, and link to the entries and papers that hold the research. Fifteen so far, from Heart and Skin to Eyes & Vision and Energy & Fatigue.
Browse the guides →Every substantive claim carries an inline grade — Strong, Moderate, Animal/in-vitro, Inferred, Contested, or Speculative — attached to that specific claim rather than a whole section.
Where a synthesis originates from advocacy sources rather than a study demonstrating it end-to-end, that is stated at point of use, with mainstream reviews cited alongside.
Each paper states the strongest case against its own thesis at full strength before answering it — and says plainly where the reply is weak.
A plain-language primer comes first, and enzyme-level detail is quarantined into optional blocks with a takeaway that carries the essential point.
A follow-up on ferroptosis and iron-driven oxidative stress is currently being scoped.