The Active Site
The Active Site investigates the biology, biochemistry, and clinical evidence behind nutrition, health, and human performance. Hosted by Dr. William Wallace, PhD — a decade in clinical research and natural product engineering.
The Active Site
Latest Episodes
Were We Wrong About Fish Oil and the Brain?
For thirty years, the supplement aisle has sold fish oil as one of the simplest decisions you can make for your brain. In 2026, two research teams on opposite sides of the world published papers that complicate that story, and the literature be...
The New Dietary Guidelines Controversy — Explained
PREFACE: This is an explanation of the debate the guidelines have stimulated. It references the data used to rationalize the guidelines and the data used to oppose them. There is nothing here that was not cited by the new or old guidelines. For...
Fish Oil, Oxidation, and the Truth About “Rancidity”
Omega-3 supplements are at the center of a controversy regarding their oxidation levels and potential harm. This presentation addresses the gap between claims of harm and the available human data, explaining how oxidation is measured and interp...
A Nutrient Mixture That Tunes Brain Signaling
Nutrients are usually studied in isolation, yet synapses don’t operate that way. This episode examines research showing that coordinated nutritional inputs can reshape synaptic proteins and neural firing patterns (effects that isolated inputs f...
How One Amino Acid Touches Two Aging Pathways
L-arginine is usually treated as a simple nitric-oxide precursor, a molecule with a narrow vascular role. But across multiple lines of research, it keeps appearing in places it shouldn’t: improving cerebral blood flow in older adults, shifting ...