Trying to make sense of often-conflicting nutrition and health claims? You might find answers in a blog written by graduate students in the Human Nutraceutical Research Unit (HNRU), part of U of G’s Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences (HHNS).
Called NUTRInitiative, the online resource serves up articles to help readers learn about the science behind nutrition, functional foods and nutraceuticals.
In recent pieces, students have written about the health benefits of chocolate, prickly pears as functional foods and natural health products.
This month’s posting examines caffeine, including Health Canada regulations on labelling and sale of high-caffeine products.
Seven graduate students and recent grads take turns contributing articles to the site, co-edited by Prof. Amanda Wright, HHNS, and HNRU manager Amy Tucker.
All of the contributors have been involved with clinical studies at the HNRU.
Besides teaching readers about nutrition topics, the blog gives Guelph students a chance to hone their research and writing skills. It also allows the HNRU to promote evidence-based approaches to understanding nutrition topics, says Wright.
“Our students understand how to gather evidence about products. The field of nutrition needs clarification and contributions from people familiar with evidence and able to evaluate things critically.”
Contributors discuss their ideas with Wright and Tucker, and prepare articles by drawing on their interests and U of G studies. New articles appear monthly.
One popular recent article by grad student Svitlana Yurchenko cautioned consumers about so-called super-foods such as raspberry ketones, touted in some popular media for promoting weight loss.
The blog is intended to provide dispassionate information to help readers wade through hype and misinformation. Writers weigh evidence and refer to resources such as media reports and journal articles. Says Wright: “A lot of nutrition topics are emotional or political.”
The project was begun in mid-2011 by Marisa Catapang, then a master’s student in the department. She’s now writing for the Natural Standard Research Collaboration in Toronto.
She proposed a blog to Wright as part of an independent project. Her timing was good, as the HNRU was updating its website.
Both saw the blog as a promotional tool and as a vehicle for encouraging reflective thinking among students and broadening their learning beyond the classroom.
“For me, it was a chance to practise popular press-style writing,” says Catapang.
The blog also allowed her to apply skills from an HHNS research communications course she had taken. The course is offered as part of the SPARK (Students Promoting Awareness of Research Knowledge) program in U of G’s Office of Research.
That course “made me think of research in a different way and gave me a new-found appreciation for the complexities of journalism and plain language writing.”
NUTRInitiative readers hail from some 50 countries, although most viewers are in Canada, says Tucker. She joined the HNRU last year after completing her PhD in the department in 2011.