LINDAU, Germany — A 93 - year - old Nobel laureate in
physiology or medicine received a standing ovation from hundreds
of scientists on June 30 at the end
of a speech in which he urged the
world's young people to take measures to control runaway population growth in order to resolve related ills that have resulted from
humans» remarkable evolutionary success as a species.
My training includes a five - year undergraduate degree in animal
physiology from one
of Germany's leading universities for biology (University
of Tübingen, Germany), training in the conduct
of human psychophysical experiments and in cognitive neuroscience from one
of the
world's major centres for cognitive neuroscience (Masters on
human face recognition at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics under Profs. Nico Troje, Heinrich Bülthoff and Dezsö Varjú) and training in coral reef biology and ecology from the University
of Queensland (PhD on visual ecology
of reef fish) under Prof. Justin Marshall and Prof. Jack Pettigrew).
He taught me a lot about evolutionary medicine and nutrition in general, opened many doors and introduced me (directly and indirectly) to various players in this field, such as Dr. Boyd Eaton (one
of the fathers
of evolutionary nutrition), Maelán Fontes from Spain (a current research colleague and close friend), Alejandro Lucia (a Professor and a top researcher in exercise
physiology from Spain, with whom I am collaborating), Ben Balzer from Australia (a physician and one
of the best minds in evolutionary medicine), Robb Wolf from the US (a biochemist and the best «biohackers I know»), Óscar Picazo and Fernando Mata from Spain (close friends who are working with me at NutriScience), David Furman from Argentina (a top immunologist and expert in chronic inflammation working at Stanford University, with whom I am collaborating), Stephan Guyenet from the US (one
of my main references in the obesity field), Lynda Frassetto and Anthony Sebastian (both nephrologists at the University
of California San Francisco and experts in acid - base balance), Michael Crawford from the UK (a
world renowned expert in DHA and Director
of the Institute
of Brain Chemistry and
Human Nutrition, at the Imperial College London), Marcelo Rogero (a great researcher and Professor
of Nutrigenomics at the University
of Sao Paulo, Brazil), Sérgio Veloso (a cell biologist from Portugal currently working with me, who has one
of the best health blogs I know), Filomena Trindade (a Portuguese physician based in the US who is an expert in functional medicine), Remko Kuipers and Martine Luxwolda (both physicians from the Netherlands, who conducted field research on traditional populations in Tanzania), Gabriel de Carvalho (a pharmacist and renowned nutritionist from Brazil), Alex Vasquez (a physician from the US, who is an expert in functional medicine and Rheumatology), Bodo Melnik (a Professor
of Dermatology and expert in Molecular Biology from Germany, with whom I have published papers on milk and mTOR signaling), Johan Frostegård from Sweden (a rheumatologist and Professor at Karolinska Institutet, who has been a pioneer on establishing the role
of the immune system in cardiovascular disease), Frits Muskiet (a biochemist and Professor
of Pathophysiology from the Netherlands, who, thanks to his incredible encyclopedic knowledge and open - mind, continuously teaches me more than I could imagine and who I consider a mentor), and the Swedish researchers Staffan Lindeberg, Tommy Jönsson and Yvonne Granfeldt, who became close friends and mentors.