New Perspectives on Metabolism: From Gut to Brain

Discover how gut microbes shape your health

Traditional views of metabolism focus on calories and chemical reactions, but new research shows it’s a multi-organ system shaped by gut microbes, sleep, brain signalling, and liver health.

You’ll learn how this science can guide nutritional strategies and disease prevention on this four-week course.

Uncover the link between gut microbiota and metabolism

Deep within your gut, trillions of microbes are hard at work—shaping your metabolism in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

On this course, you’ll follow their chemical trail, uncovering how compounds like short-chain fatty acids and bile acids help regulate inflammation, support immunity, and send signals to the brain that affect your whole-body health.

You’ll also discover how everyday choices (diet, probiotics, etc.) can reshape your microbiome, leaving you equipped with evidence-based strategies to support your gut and promote long-term metabolic health.

Unpack the brain-sleep-metabolism connection

Sleep is more than just rest. It works alongside the gut and brain to maintain metabolic balance. You’ll continue this course by exploring how lack of sleep disrupts gut microbes, impairs metabolism, and increases the risk of obesity and metabolic disorders.

You will also dive into the frontier of brain insulin signalling and discover how insulin resistance in the brain can alter appetite, drive overeating, and affect energy balance throughout the body.

Learn about liver and translational metabolic interventions

Finally, you’ll understand how conditions like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) reflect deeper metabolic dysfunction, and how nutrition can support liver recovery by targeting root causes.

This course is ideal for those who want to learn the latest scientific advances in metabolism at a university or professional level.

This course is ideal for those who want to learn the latest scientific advances in metabolism at a university or professional level.

• Explored how gut microbiota influence host metabolic pathways and disease development.
• Explain the relationship between chronic sleep deprivation, gut dysbiosis, and metabolic disorders.
• Investigated the central role of insulin in the brain and its implications for obesity and energy balance.
• Describe the insight into the metabolic pathways underlying liver diseases such as NAFLD and cirrhosis
• Practice nutritional and lifestyle interventions for promoting metabolic and neurological health.