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Her Metabolism is a Minnesota USA Nonprofit (501c3), offering free nonpartisan evidence-based science and education about her metabolism.

 

Essential and Nonessential

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Updated and Verified: September 19, 2024 (News page records significant changes.)

For nutrition, essential does not mean "important," nor does nonessential mean "not important." (Plenty people inaccurately and unhelpfully use the terms essential and nonessential in the "important/not-important" way.) Rather, in nutrition, something is nonessential if the body makes it - and a thing is essential if the body does not make it but rather a person must eat to get the essential thing. For example, cholesterol is "important" because people would die without it; however, in nutrition, cholesterol is a nonessential nutrient because the body (when healthy and normal) makes cholesterol already, so cholesterol is nonessential: it does not need to be eaten because the body already makes it. Meanwhile, in nutrition, iron is an essential nutrient - not because it is "important" (which it is) but rather because the body does not make iron, so a person must eat to get it.

Conditionally Essential

Some nutrients are generally nonessential (again, meaning made by the body) but become essential sometimes. These may be called conditionally essential. The Euro School of India explains this helpfully:

[Conditionally essential nutrients] are typically non-essential nutrients that can become essential under specific circumstances, such as during illness or stress. For instance, arginine and glutamine are non-essential amino acids that can become conditionally essential during times of disease or physical trauma.1

References

References

  1. Difference between essential and nonessential nutrients. EuroSchool. Published August 3, 2023. Accessed June 19, 2024. https://www.euroschoolindia.com/blogs/difference-between-essential-non-essential-nutrients/

Medical, Legal, and Metabolic Advice

Here in the USA, it is generally illegal and a bad idea for anyone but a jurisdiction-licensed physician to give medical advice, anyone but a jurisdiction-licensed attorney to give legal advice, anyone but a jurisdiction-licensed nutritionist or registered dietician to give metabolic advice, and so forth. This website's information is generally incomplete to predict how applying it may affect a given visitor - because the effects depend on the person's unique circumstances and characteristics.

So, here is the only medical, legal, and metabolic advice on this website: None of this website is individualized medical, legal, or metabolic advice. It is general information. You should not try to apply any of this information to your life, unless you know what you are doing. Generally, the governments of USA's jurisdictions (states and territories) declare two things through law:

  1. Without the guidance of a jurisdiction-licensed physician, attorney, or nutritionist: you do not know what you are doing, so it is unwise and unsafe for you to make too many decision about your medical, legal, and metabolic status and circumstances, and
  2. no one but a licensed physician, attorney, or nutritionist can safely and effectively advise you about those statuses and circumstances - thus, it is generally illegal for anyone else to try.

Obviously, those standards are extremely conservative, if not heavy-handed. However, one should remember that many of those people in government who uphold such strict standards have seen the stuff of nightmares: predictable, preventable, terrible consequences when the least capable and least conscientious people make the worst decisions - whether medically, legally, nutritionally, or otherwise. So, it is not wildly unreasonable to promote - even to legally command - erring on the safe side. Still, various jurisdictions do provide some exceptions to those exceptionally strict standards under law.

Here in Minnesota (and in many other U.S. states and territories) a person can help you with certain aspects of your medical, legal, and metabolic status and circumstances - even when that person is not formally licensed by the jurisdiction. Minnesota, for example, allows various people besides licensed nutritionists and registered dieticians to give metabolic advice and guidance: certain Complementary and Alternative Health Care providers, which Minnesota allows under law. Minn. Stat. ยง 146A. Thus, one need not feel completely locked into the strict standards listed above (though jurisdictions do typically still hold alternative providers to certain basic standards under law). Instead, in the USA, one can discuss the information on this website, and receive guidance about it, from various experts - whether jurisdiction-licensed or not. Meanwhile, this thorough and smart-sounding notice and explanation should not tempt any visitor into having any extra trust for the information in this website. At most, as the saying goes: "trust but verify."

Sincerely,

Dr. R. Floyd Lindquist

Her Metabolism: Founder, Treasurer, Secretary, Lead Data Scientist, and Director of Communications and Research

PhD (Thanatology), PsyD (Psychology), DLP (Law and Policy), MPH (Nutrition & Epidemiology), MS (Nutrition), MA (Counseling)

floyd[at]hermetabolism[dot]org

Her Metabolism is a Minnesota Nonprofit (501c3)