Author: José Miguel Soriano del Castillo, Catedrático de Nutrición y Bromatología del Departamento de Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública, Universitat de València

A table overlooking the sea, with a cold drink accompanied by olives, crisps, nuts, perhaps a tin of sardines or fried fish and chips. Even if you aren’t particularly hungry, the seaside atmosphere seems to demand this kind of savoury, salty food. Is it just force of habit, a physiological need, or does the sea […]

When we think about nutrition, we almost always picture the same key players: the mouth, stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas and, perhaps, the gut microbiota. However, the human body is not made up of isolated compartments. Eating is not just about introducing food into the digestive tract, it also involves salivating, swallowing, transporting, distributing fluids, activating […]

With the release of Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg’s new film about aliens, a question as old as science fiction itself resurfaces: if aliens were to arrive on Earth, would they come to conquer us, to study us… or perhaps to eat? We must begin here with a word of caution. There is no scientific evidence […]

Iodine deficiency is often seen as a problem of the past, but this isn’t entirely true. During the 20th century, the iodisation of salt became one of the most effective public health interventions for preventing conditions caused by a lack of this mineral, including goiter (enlargement of the thyroid gland) and preventable damage to neurological […]

For many years, sports nutrition was rooted in a simple metaphor: the body is an engine, glycogen (the body’s quick-release carbohydrate reserve) is its fuel, and fatigue occurs when the tank runs low. Under this logic, nutrition strategy seemed quite obvious: eat lots of carbohydrates, fill the tank, and if possible, keep topping it up […]