M. Alice Ottoboni

We are long-retired public health scientists; Alice in biochemistry and toxicology and Fred in chemical engineering and diseases of occupations. We are still active in study and writing about the relationship between diet and disease. We are both in excellent health despite disabilities that confine Alice to a walker and Fred to a wheelchair.

When we retired in the mid 1980s, we dedicated our retirement years to study of nutrition with special emphasis on nutritional biochemistry. Our goal was to help people who had the desire to achieve and maintain good health through proper nutrition learn how to do so based on valid nutritional science rather than on the pseudoscience that is the hallmark of the Food Guide Pyramid.

Our studies were revealing. They were also accompanied by major changes in our thinking about human nutritional needs and chronic disease. We soon found that there were a few scientists whose writings kept coming to the fore in our searches. They echoed the scientific facts we were discovering; they were pioneers in development and medical use of the low- or no-carbohydrate nutritional plan. We soon settled on three who provided the background for our deliberations and conclusions about our findings.

Our three authorities in the early days of our study have not been supplanted by any newcomers to the field. These pioneers are: the late Dr. Robert Atkins who helped thousands of obese patients regain health with his observational skills and intuitive knowledge that if you gave the body the nutrients it required the body would heal itself; Dr. Barry Sears who introduced the athletic community to the benefits of low-carbohydrate nutrition and informed us of the existence of eicosanoids; and Drs. Mary Dan and Michael Eades who supplied the sound nutritional science on which their highly successful treatment of obesity and related disorders was based and introduced us to the Paleolithic man and the evolutionary (now labeled Paleo) diet that created him.

Nutritional biochemistry, which began its evolution with the origin of life and continued along to the appearance of humanoid creatures, explains the broad outline of the nutritional pattern that is optimal for the human species. In essence, this general outline specifies 1) control of carbohydrates, 2) balance of omega-6 to omega-3 essential fatty acids, and 3) adequate essential micronutrients.

Now with all of this in mind, we would like to take the opportunity to offer a bit of advice to all who are now reading this biography. Remember always that Your Body is the Temple of Your Mind. All of your study, all of your work, all of your hopes, all of your dreams are for naught if your mind in not able to function properly because of ill health. So read, study, and learn what nutritional science tells you. You will never regret the time and effort expended.