Why I'm going public

I'm not an influencer. I'm a chemist.

For twenty years I studied how proteins and small molecules act in the body, at universities in Germany, the United States and Switzerland, then in research centres of the pharmaceutical and food industries. I built models of sodium channels and helped work out the evolution of venom systems. And I learned how laborious evidence is: slow, full of doubt, full of results you end up discarding.

Out there it looks different. Out there, everything is already settled.

What bothers me

An ingredient is good or evil. A nutrient heals or harms. A single study becomes a headline, and the headline becomes a certainty. Whoever is loudest is right, and whoever phrases things carefully disappears.

The problem isn't that people care about their health. That's a good thing. The problem is that between them and the evidence lies a layer made of exaggeration. Of idealism that turned sensational. Of fear, because fear reliably gets clicks.

The result isn't clarity. It's confusion. People buy things that do nothing and avoid things that are harmless. They feel guilty about their breakfast.

Knowledge should set you free, not confuse you.

What I do instead

I don't read an ingredient list as marketing. I read it as a list of molecules. What is actually in there, in what quantity, and what does it do in the body? Usually the answer is less dramatic than either camp claims, the alarmists as much as the sellers.

And I tell you how certain I am. Every claim I make here gets one of three labels:

Proven. Supported by solid studies. The source is named, and so are the limits of the evidence.

Plausible. Mechanistically coherent or supported by early data, but not firmly established. Named for what it is.

Hypothesis. A reasoned guess. Interesting, but open. I mark it rather than sell it as certainty.

This is uncomfortable. It reads worse than "this one molecule changes everything". But it is the only way of handling evidence I can justify to myself. And honestly: on much of what is discussed online with great confidence, nobody really knows.

Where I come from

I have taught chemistry at Kantonsschule Solothurn since 2008. When you have to explain to seventeen-year-olds why a molecule reacts this way and not another, you learn two things. You cannot hide behind jargon. And you can tell who truly understood, because they can ask the next question.

That work turned into more than teaching.

With CuraCap I founded a company that develops serums for the scalp — not for the hair. That distinction isn't marketing, it's biology: hair is dead keratin, the scalp is living tissue. I talk about the products over there, not here. Here I write as a chemist.

With my friend Stefan I'm building Naviyara, an app for nutrition. I'm responsible for the scientific side. Whatever goes in has to pass the same scrutiny as everything I write here.

And then there is Christine, my wife. She developed the FACE-Methode® and trains facial muscles where others reach for a needle. She works on the face; I work on what goes into it. We share a territory (nutrition, skin biology) and a standard: evidence first, statement second.

Health and natural beauty are not opposites to me. They are the same subject seen from two directions. What ruins both is the promise nobody can keep.

What you can expect here

Long form. Articles that follow a question until it is answered, or until it is clear that the evidence cannot yet answer it. Ingredients in food, in cosmetics, in the household. Nutrition and nutrients. And again and again: popular health promises, calmly examined.

The study is real. The conclusion drawn from it is often the actual question.

I write irregularly but thoroughly. I will correct myself when I am wrong, and I will say so. I will not try to sell you something while I explain something to you.

Without chemistry, there is no life. It doesn't deserve to end up as a slur.

Join me in this quest.