This document discusses the relationship between food, nutrition, and human health. It covers several topics:
- The definitions of food, nutrition, and nutrients, and how they relate to health and fitness. Good nutrition is necessary to maintain health.
- The effects of nutrition on health, including how inadequate nutrition can impact health and how nutrition can be used to optimize existing health issues. Nutrition is important for preventing and correcting nutrient deficiencies.
- Different categories of using nutrition to optimize health, from correcting deficiencies to modulating existing health issues to optimizing future health. However, achieving health benefits through nutrition presents many challenges.
- Factors to consider when correcting inadequate nutrition and deficiencies, such as establishing underlying causes
This document discusses the relationship between food, nutrition, and human health. It covers several topics:
- The definitions of food, nutrition, and nutrients, and how they relate to health and fitness. Good nutrition is necessary to maintain health.
- The effects of nutrition on health, including how inadequate nutrition can impact health and how nutrition can be used to optimize existing health issues. Nutrition is important for preventing and correcting nutrient deficiencies.
- Different categories of using nutrition to optimize health, from correcting deficiencies to modulating existing health issues to optimizing future health. However, achieving health benefits through nutrition presents many challenges.
- Factors to consider when correcting inadequate nutrition and deficiencies, such as establishing underlying causes
This document discusses the relationship between food, nutrition, and human health. It covers several topics:
- The definitions of food, nutrition, and nutrients, and how they relate to health and fitness. Good nutrition is necessary to maintain health.
- The effects of nutrition on health, including how inadequate nutrition can impact health and how nutrition can be used to optimize existing health issues. Nutrition is important for preventing and correcting nutrient deficiencies.
- Different categories of using nutrition to optimize health, from correcting deficiencies to modulating existing health issues to optimizing future health. However, achieving health benefits through nutrition presents many challenges.
- Factors to consider when correcting inadequate nutrition and deficiencies, such as establishing underlying causes
This document discusses the relationship between food, nutrition, and human health. It covers several topics:
- The definitions of food, nutrition, and nutrients, and how they relate to health and fitness. Good nutrition is necessary to maintain health.
- The effects of nutrition on health, including how inadequate nutrition can impact health and how nutrition can be used to optimize existing health issues. Nutrition is important for preventing and correcting nutrient deficiencies.
- Different categories of using nutrition to optimize health, from correcting deficiencies to modulating existing health issues to optimizing future health. However, achieving health benefits through nutrition presents many challenges.
- Factors to consider when correcting inadequate nutrition and deficiencies, such as establishing underlying causes
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INTRODUCTION
FOOD, NUTRITION AND NUTRIENT
HEALTH AND FITNESS IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN NUTRITION EFFECTS OF NUTRITION TO OPTIMISE HEALTH CORRECTING INADEQUATE NUTRITION AND DEFICIENCIES TERRITORIALIZED FOOD SYSTEMS CONTRIBUTE TO HUMAN HEALTH CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION Food and nutrition are closely related to health. Both food and nutrition are matters of Public Health. In fact, one of the main Public Health concerns includes access to minimal, essential, nutritionally adequate and safe food for everyone. The term ‘food hygiene’ refers to production, processing, handling and storage operations which ensure acceptable levels of safety and quality of foods to the final consumer. Nonetheless, various foodborne pathogens are associated with foodborne diseases. Fresh vegetables, in particular, have been recently involved in international outbreaks caused by E. coli O104:H4 in Europe and North America and by Salmonella and E. coli O157 in the USA. Ready-to-eat (RTE) salads in particular are associated with foodborne pathogens and there is evidence that they may be involved in the vehiculation of antibiotic resistance of clinically relevant bacteria. Anyway, from a Public Health point of view, especially in industrialized countries, where time spent for food preparation is declining, people could take advantage from RTE salads thanks to the prevention of some chronic diseases associated with low minerals and fibers uptake. This is a typical example of close relation between food, nutrition and Public Health. ‘Good nutrition’ is fundamental for a productive life, but at the moment malnutrition is a Public Health problem worldwide. It is estimated that by 2020, chronic non-communicable diseases, most of which associated with malnutrition, will be responsible for two-thirds of the global burden of disease (Park et al., 2013). The problem of undernourishment often coexists with micronutrient deficiencies as well as overweight and obesity, and thus a large proportion of the world population suffers from some form of malnutrition. Low diet quality is responsible for micronutrient deficiencies in an estimated two billion people, while also contributing to the pandemic of overweight and obesity, which affects over 1.9 billion adults. The global food system has favored the homogenization of diets and a rapid shift to unhealthy dietary patterns in many parts of the world, resulting in increased consumption of highly processed and poorly nutritious foods rich in sugar, salt, and fat, and of animal foods (Lindgren et al., 2018). FOOD, NUTRITION AND NUTRIENT FOOD: can be defined as anything solid or liquid which when swallowed, digested and assimilated in the body provides it with essential substances called nutrients and keeps it well. It is the basic necessity of life. Food supplies energy, enables growth and repair of tissues and organs. It also protects the body from disease and regulates body functions. NUTRITION: is defined as the science of foods, nutrients and other substances they contain; and of their actions within the body including ingestion, digestion, absorption, metabolism and excretion. While this summarises the physiological dimensions, nutrition has social, psychological and economic dimensions too. NUTRIENTS: are the constituents in food that must be supplied to the body in suitable amounts. These include carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins, water and fibre. We need a wide range of nutrients to keep ourselves healthy. Most foods contain more than one nutrient such as milk has proteins, fats, etc. Nutrients can be classified as macronutrients and micronutrients on the basis of the required quantity to be consumed by us everyday (Brouwer ) HEALTH AND FITNESS According to World Health Organisation WHO, (2015) HEALTH: ‘‘Health is the state of complete physical, emotional, and social well-being, not merely the absence of diseases or infirmity.’’ All of us want to maintain positive health, i.e., a perfect blend of physical, social and mental. Taking adequate amounts of essential nutrients in our diet is necessary to maintain positive health. FITNESS: is now defined as the body’s ability to function efficiently and effectively in work and leisure activities, to be healthy, to resist diseases and to meet emergency situations. Fitness can also be divided into five categories: aerobic fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Being fit prepares one to meet mental and emotional challenges. One feels strong and energetic if one is fit. Fitness provides one with the ability to meet routine physical demands with enough reserve energy to rise to a sudden challenge (WHO, 2015). EFFECTS OF NUTRITION TO OPTIMISE HEALTH INADEQUATE NUTRITION Here, the starting point is a situation of sub-optimal health that is at least to some extent attributable to insufficient intake and (or) status of specific micronutrients. The underlying causes can be diverse and the number of nutrients of concern might range between one and several. Although in several cases the situation can be improved in a relatively simple manner, there are also pitfalls to be taken into account. These include interdependencies between nutrients, confounders and ‘bystander’ effects, underlying causes that are not resolved etc. MODULATING SUBOPTIMAL HEALTH This is related to an unhealthy lifestyle, ageing, recovery from disease, etc. In many countries, obesity and pre-diabetes are highly prevalent in the general population. Although these conditions may be associated with specific diseases and disorders including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and dementia, there is often room and a demand for more generic health optimization. There is often also at least some insight into the relationships between cause, intervention and expected measurable results. Going even further are ‘food as medicine’ strategies which are currently increasingly seen. In this context, optimizing health not only comprises lifestyle interventions to improve general health and well-being of patients, but also nutritional strategies to stabilize or even ‘reverse’ the disease process itself [23]. Here too, however, there are several pitfalls that must be taken into account. Long term solutions can be disappointing and require rigorous adaptations of eating habits. As a consequence, quick wins do not exist and single product solutions usually only have short-term and marginal value (De Carvalho et al., 2020). OPTIMISING FUTURE HEALTH Both from a physiological as well as a regulatory point of view this is the most challenging category. Although there may be some overlap with the previous category, including with respect to target groups, the emphasis lies here on effects that go beyond the nutritional value of food components. In addition, the health domains are much wider than typically related to nutrition and metabolism. Instead, they focus on ‘improving physiological functioning’ of processes and systems including the immune system, bone and joints, sleep, well-being etc. The erratic transitions between normal functioning, abnormal functioning and explicit health complaints often create complications, both scientifically and regulatory. The idea is that physiological functioning and resilience are optimised in a more pro-active manner, resulting in potential health benefits that may in part be beneficial for future situations. Needless to say that pitfalls are manifold, the most relevant being caused by the need to measure subtle physiological effects and translate them to actual and perceivable benefits (Shao et al., 2017). CORRECTING INADEQUATE NUTRITION AND DEFICIENCIES The finding that single nutrients and their deficiencies could be linked to specific symptoms and disorders is at the basis of the development of nutrition science as a discipline during the early 20th century (Shao et al., 2017). Since that time, several examples of clinically relevant single nutrient deficiencies have become known, and their resolution can prevent serious and sometimes permanent physical or cognitive impairments, or even death. Even today, micronutrient deficiencies in particular, due to poor diets are common and they contribute to major health problems world-wide (Bailey, 2015). Furthermore, several risk factors for micronutrient deficiencies are known, including age, use of multiple or specific medication, bariatric surgery, regular strenuous exercise, lack of sun exposure, disease, adherence to specific diets etc. Next to micronutrients, consumption of adequate amounts of protein also merits attention in certain groups, such as elderly and chronically diseased and as global health issue. Although the case of optimizing health by nutrition may seem rather obvious here, there are still a number of caveats and pitfalls that need to be considered (Wardenaar et al., 2017). First of all, it is important to establish whenever possible the underlying cause of the observed deficiencies and to take into account that insufficient nutrient intake or uptake, or an inadequate status do often not occur in isolation. Furthermore, nutrients are involved in several interdependent molecular networks which means that both their deficiencies and their correction may depend on the status of others. These and other factors mean that nutrients generally show U-shaped concentration-effect behaviour, which is in contrast to most medicines where often a sigmoid dose-response curve is observed (Figure 3). As a consequence, there usually exists an optimum status with a certain bandwidth. Nutrients are often involved in different processes corresponding to different health endpoints with sometimes different optimums. This may also lead to changing viewpoints with time. An example is vitamin D, where adequate plasma levels of the marker metabolite 25(OH)D had originally been estimated based on the role of vitamin D in bone health. However, more recent insights into the significance of vitamin D in relation to other processes, including the immune system and muscle functioning, refuelled the discussions about what optimal levels are, which continues to this day (Brouwer-Brolsma et al., 2013). Due to the fact that micronutrients are involved in different processes and may additionally have non-nutritional, pharmacological effects, their pattern of (side-) effects in the descending and ascending part of the dose-response curve are likely to be different as well, making dose-effect extrapolations impossible in these situations. An example is ascorbic acid, vitamin C, which may be administered, including parenterally, at pharmacological doses several folds exceeding the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA). The close intertwining of (micro-) nutrients can also lead to a too one-sided focus on correcting single nutrient deficiencies. For example, it has been found that effects of B-vitamins on cognitive functioning in elderly depend on their mutual balance and also on the n-3 fatty acid status (Van Soest et al., 2021). ROLE OF HUMAN NUTRITION Human nutrition refers to the provision of essential nutrients necessary to support human life and health. Nutrition is concerned with food and how the body uses it. Food is essential for life, providing the fuel the body needs to function and the building blocks that make up cells, tissues, and organs. Therefore, good nutrition is essential for health and the prevention of diseases. Research has linked these ingredients to impatience and even aggression. But a healthy diet will boost your mood and even stave off darkfeelings. The body requires a certain number of calories simply to carry out its basic metabolic functions such as respiration and maintenance of body temperature. Additional calories are needed to support physical activity, fight infection, and rebuild damaged tissues. However, if a person does not take in enough calories, fat is broken down to provide fuel. Once the fat is consumed or if an individual’s metabolism is disrupted due to illness, lean body mass (muscle and organs) is then used for fuel and raw materials (Wang et al., 2021). TERRITORIALIZED FOOD SYSTEMS CONTRIBUTE TO HUMAN HEALTH Territorialized food systems may contribute to improved nutritional status and health by diversifying and incorporating nutritious local crops (e.g., DOCs and FSFs) into the diet. For example, integration of local crops, such as millet, lentils, chick peas, and others, in one’s diet may alleviate macro- and micronutrient deficiencies and non-communicable diseases associated with homogenized diets due to the high nutritional value of these foods (Campos et al., 2013). However, that more education about the health and nutritional benefits of these foods is needed for people to integrate this practice into their daily dietary and consumption habits. Data also suggest that food producers, farming workers, and consumers perceive territorialized food systems as having a positive impact on their health as well as on achieving a healthier diet. Territorialized food systems may indeed contribute to a better diet quality and health by providing easy daily access to fresh fruits and vegetables (Coniglio et al., 2016). One study included in this rapid review did not directly assess the link between the territorialized food system and health. However, the authors focused on healthy and sustainable diets and the availability of the foods that make up these diets within food systems. It is important to stress that the present rapid review could not identify intervention studies that assessed the impact of territorialized food systems per se on diet quality or health (Boobis et al., 2013). CONCLUSION Good food is needed for a person to grow well, work hard, and stay healthy. People’s health is weakened if there is no food security and they are vulnerable to any disease. The failure was not that of modern medicine, rather, we were failing to deal with the root causes of disease, lack of food and adequate nutrition, unsafe water, and bad sanitation. Many of the illnesses we were treating could be prevented of we addressed these core problems. Many common sicknesses come from not eating enough. The quality of the farmer’s life is greatly affected by disease. To eliminate the many sources of infections, contagious, nutritional and other diseases, it could surely make a significant contribution to raising the levels of personal hygiene; it could improve eating habits and contribute to communal sanitation. Only by working towards a healthy environment and social justice can we guarantee food security for everyone. Investment in education that is not accompanied by investment in health and nutrition of children is a net loss of a country. Therefore, to prevent diseases improved nutritional status required changes outside the health sector. References Bailey, R.L. (2015); West, K.P., Jr.; Black, R.E. The epidemiology of global micronutrient deficiencies. Ann. Nutr. Metab., 66, 22–33. Boobis, A.; Chiodini, A.; Hoekstra, J.; Lagiou, P.; Przyrembel, H.; Schlatter, J.; Schutte, K.; Verhagen, H.; Watzl, B. (2013); Critical appraisal of the assessment of benefits and risks for foods, ’BRAFO Consensus Working Group’. Food Chem. Toxicol., 55, 659–675. Brouwer-Brolsma, E.M. (2013); Bischoff-Ferrari, H.A.; Bouillon, R.; Feskens, E.J.; Gallagher, C.J.; Hypponen, E.; Llewellyn, D.J.; Stoecklin, E.; Dierkes, J.; Kies, A.K.; et al. Vitamin D: Do we get enough? A discussion between vitamin D experts in order to make a step towards the harmonisation of dietary reference intakes for vitamin D across Europe. Osteoporos. Int., 24, 1567–1577. Brouwer-Brolsma, E.M.; Bischoff-Ferrari, H.A.; Bouillon, R.; Feskens, E.J.; Gallagher, C.J.; Hypponen, E.; Llewellyn, D.J.; Stoecklin, E.; Dierkes, J.; Kies, A.K.; et al. (2013). Vitamin D: Do we get enough? A discussion between vitamin D experts in order to make a step towards the harmonisation of dietary reference intakes for vitamin D across Europe. Osteoporos. Int., 24, 1567–1577. Campos J, Mourão J, Pestana N, Peixe L, Novais C, et al. (2013) Microbiological quality of ready-to-eat salads: an underestimated vehicle of bacteria and clinically relevant antibiotic resistance genes. 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