Institute for Optimum Nutrition

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The Institute for Optimum Nutrition (ION) was founded by British nutritionist and author Patrick Holford in 1984. It was originally in London in the United Kingdom, but moved to Surrey in November 2005. According to its website, it is a "not-for-profit charity dedicated to the furtherance of the principles of optimum nutrition and to advance the knowledge and practice of nutritional therapy as a treatment complementary to traditional forms of medicine."

The ION runs courses and workshops in nutrition. They publish the Optimun Nutrition Magazine four times a year. They provide lists of 'approved' nutritionists in the UK, although nutritionist is not a protected title and the Institute therefore has considerable autonomy regarding who they choose to approve. ION offers a Home Study Course, and a three-year Diploma in Nutritional Therapy (DipION). The Institute is not an accredited Higher Education Institution, although the University of Bedfordshire has recently agreed to validate its DipION as a foundation degree.

The British Dietetic Association has, however, accused the ION of basing its nutritional recommendations on weak evidence drawn from low quality research [1]. Moreover, Prof David Colquhoun has criticised the ION's Diploma in Nutritional Therapy, arguing that:

The give-away is the term Nutritional Therapy . They are the folks who claim, with next to no evidence, that changing your diet, and buying from them a lot of expensive ’supplements’, will cure almost any disease (even AIDS and cancer)...The IoN is run by Patrick Holford, whose only qualification in nutrition is a diploma awarded to himself by his own Institute. His advocacy of vitamin C as better than conventional drugs to treat AIDS is truly scary.[2]

In fact, the Institute for Optimum Nutrition hasn't been run by Patrick Holford since 1992.