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Nutrition and Metabolism I

Clinical Nutrition in the Herbal Paradigm

Overview

In this course you will:

  • Learn the historical balance of macronutrients and micronutrients human dietary anthropology. .

  • Learn the unique new deficiencies and imbalances that have arisen since the industrial revolution, and especially since the mid-twentieth century.

  • Review the most common deficiencies and imbalances present in the modern North American patient.

  • Learn a general but flexible corrective nutritional regimen for the average modern patient appropriate for most individuals.

  • Study imbalances, dietary patterns, and the pathologies that most often accompany them, including The SAD Diet (Standard American Diet) pattern; The Disordered Eating pattern 3) The Junk-Food Vegetarian pattern 4) The Stress-Carbohydrate pattern 5) Insulin Resistance pattern and 6) the Food Intolerance pattern.

  • We will review the role and actions of the most important nutrients in the protocols in that regimen, including protein, meat, iron, carnitine, essential fatty acids, magnesium, calcium, vitamin D, and the B vitamins.

  • Learn the foods which are highest in the above nutrients, and receive food lists that can be used as patient handouts.

  • Learn specific nutritional protocols to support normal immunity, reduce inflammation, correct insulin resistance and improve diabetic control, correct female hormone imbalances, and address chronic stress or fatigue.

  • Learn strategies for making dietary changes by reinforcing the positive urge for nutrition rather than deprivational strategies of elimination.

  • Learn the positive vital intent of cravings, and how to satisfying them with authentic nutrition.

  • Study a set of unusually nutrient dense but common and inexpensive foods that can be added to the habitual diet to increase nutrition and satisfaction.

  • Learn simple recipes that can be incorporated for regular use to increase minerals, antioxidants, and fiber in the diet

In many cases a permanent cure comes not from an herbal medicine, but rather from correction of a nutrient deficiency, addition of specific foods, and work to find the optimal dietary pattern for the individual. For the herbalist entering the field of clinical nutrition, foods and nutrients might be studied in the paradigm of herbal actions. If magnesium were an herb, it would be classified as antispasmodic, cardio-tonic, chi tonic and adaptogenic. Supplementation to correct this common deficiency should accompany herbs given for those purposes. It may be more important than any herb with those actions because it may resolve root causes rather than simply address deficiency symptoms.  If a deficiency is not corrected,, no amount of herbal medicine will effectively solve the problem. 

Materials

 

With this course you receive 15 hours of audio files for the 4 Sections of the Course lessons, more than 250 slides to accompany the lectures, supplementary notes and readings, 17 full-text journal articles. The course comes with a Study Guide and Continuing Education questions. Students enrolled in our courses are also eligible for a 10% discount on purchases at Mountain Rose Herbs.

Lessons

Section 1  Nutrition and Metabolism in History

Section 2  Dietary Root of Modern Diseases

Section 3  Sources of Nutritional Information

Section 4  Nutrition Protocol and Supplementation

Lesson 5  Protein

Lesson 6  Trends in Protein Nutrition

Lesson 7  Meat, Iron, and Carnitine

Lesson 8  Fats

Lesson 9  Magnesium and Calcium

Lesson 10  Vitamin D

Lesson 11  B Vitamins

Lesson 12  Immunity and Inflammation

Lesson 13  Insulin Resistance

Lesson 14  Endocrine Imbalances

Lesson 15  Dietary Patterns

Lesson 16  Making changes

Lesson 17  Nutrient Density

 

Further down on this page you can find Faculty Biographies.

 

Enrollment for Credit 

 

To enroll in the course, receive a faculty mentor, and to earn the Continuing Education certificate, follow these steps:

  1. Purchase the course materials in our online store. The materials may be purchased for self-study without further enrollment in the course or tuition. 

  2. When you receive materials, print out the application form or scan it to email. Send it in with the $220 tuition, or make the payment at the school store. 

  3. This entitles you to assignment of a faculty mentor for 12 weeks after we notify you that your enrollment is accepted. You may also request and extension. 

  4. Read the instructions for obtaining CE credit in the read-me-first file with the notes.

  5. Look over the CE questions and review them before listening to the audio. 

  6. Complete any assignments or readings and answer the CE questions for each lesson.

  7. You will receive a certificate reflecting 21 hours of CE credit.

Faculty

Paul Bergner, author of the course, has practiced clinical nutrition and dietetics since 1973. He has studied nutritional anthropology since 1988. He taught nutrition at the undergraduate level at Naropa University over a period of seven years, and has taught seminars in clinical nutrition at the masters degree level. He has been training herbalists in clinical nutrition since 1996, supervising teaching clinics which combine nutrition and dietetics with herbal medicine. Click here to see Faculty biographies. 

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About This Course
  Hours:    45 CEU
Term:      12 weeks
Materials:     $159
Tuition:    $220 (optional)


This course may be taken stand-alone, or as a  course in the  Advanced Western Materia Medica Certificate

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