Nutrition & Appetite Flashcards
Learning Outcomes
- Understand how macronutrients and micronutrients interact to promote normal metabolism and growth in humans.
- Describe macro-and micro-nutrients.
- Describe essential and non-essential nutrients.
- Describe the absorptive and post-absorptive states.
- Describe the regulation of blood glucose.
- Understand how an imbalance of nutrients can lead to adverse health
outcomes
Why study nutrition?
> The study of how living organisms obtain and utilize nutrients needed to grow and sustain life.From an evolutionary perspective…
* Fitness = survival and reproduction
* Cravings for sugar, fat and salt
* Food rituals - uniquely human
Nutrition
All living organisms need nutrients to survive.
All animals obtain their nutrients by the consumption of other organisms.
Nutrients:
* Include most biomolecules, vitamins, and minerals
* Required for synthesis of new molecules
* Required for energy for maintenance, growth, and repair
* Obtained through food
* Levels regulated during and following meals
One of the challenges in human nutrition is maintaining a balance between food intake, storage, and energy expenditure. Imbalances can have serious health consequences.
Feeding or fasting
Absorptive state (the fed state):
* Time eating, digesting, and absorbing nutrients
: Concentrourons of alucose, trielverides, and
amino acids increase as absorbed from Gl tract
Post-absorptive state (the fasting state):
* Time between meals
* Body relying on stores of nutrients
* Body working to maintain homeostatic levels of nutrients
Nutrients
Any substance in food that is used by the body to promote normal growth, maintenance and repair.
Macronutrients
* Must be consumed in relatively large quantities
* Needed in daily amounts
* Carbohydrates, proteins, lipids,
Micronutrients
* Must be consumed in relatively small quantities
* Vitamins and minerals
Essential
* Must be obtain from the diet
Nonessential
* Provided by biochemical processes of body
* Not required in diet
Water
* Water is considered a nutrient
Carbohydrates
Polysaccharides:
* Dextrose
Stalose
* Glycogen
Disaccharides:
* Sucrose
* Lactose
* Maltose
Monosaccharides:
* Glucose
* Fructose
* Galactose
Carbohydrate metabolism
- Monosaccharides are
absorbed from the small intestine into the blood and then enter hepatocytes.
Fructose and galactose are converted to glucose. - Noncarbohydrates are converted to glucose by gluconeogenesis.
- Glucose molecules are bonded together to form glycogen by glycogenesis.
- Glucose molecules are released from glycogen by glycogenolysis.
Glucagon & insulin work antagonistically to maintain blood glucose levels.
Pancreas
Exocrine function: secretion of digestive enzymes
Endocrine function: secretion of glucagon & insulin
* Pancreatic islets (clusters of cells)
* Alpha cells
= Secrete glose level drop › lucagon act n elis
causing glycogen (storage polysaccharide) and amino acids to be converted to glucose.
* Raises blood glucose levels
* Beta cells
> Secrete insulin
> After meals (high blood glucose) insulin stimulates cells to take up glucose.
> Promotes synthesis of fats, glycogen.
> Lowers blood glucose
Negative feedback & blood sugar regulation
High blood glucose (hyperglycaemia)
> B cells secrete insulin
> insulin stimulates tissue uptake of glucose
and glycogen formation
> fall in blood glucose
Low blood glucose (hypoglycaemia)
> a cells secrete glucagon
* glucagon stimulates glycogenolysis
> rise in blood glucose
Pancreas
Absorptive
State
Absorptive state (the fed state):
* Insulin is the major regulatory hormone released during the absorptive state
* Released from pancreas in response to increased blood glucose levels
* Stimulates:
* Liver and muscle cells - form glycogen from glucose
* Adipose tissue - increases uptake of triglycerides from blood
* Stimulates most cells to increase amino acid uptake
* Causes acelerated protein synthesis
Post-absorptive
State
Post-absorptive state (the fasting state):
* Glucagon is the major regulatory hormone released during the post-absorptive state
* Released in response to decreasing blood glucose levels
* Stimulates:
* Liver to increase breakdown of glycogen to glucose
* Gluconeogenesis from noncarbohydrate sources
* Adipose tissue to break down triglycerides
Diabetes Mellitus - Type 1
Type 1: inability to produce sufficient insulin (insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus; IDDM)
* ~ 10% of diabetics
* previously called juvenile diabetes
* treated by self-monitoring of blood glucose and provision of exogenous
insulin
The pancreas: Regulating blood sugar
Why is regulation of blood glucose so important?
* Low blood glucose levels compromise normal brain function.
* High blood glucose levels damage blood vessels & nerves
* Homeostatic responses ensure appropriate glucose levels despite intermittent fuel supply and variable rates of glucose utilization.
Transport maximum (renal threshold)
- The upper limit of the amount of a substance that can be reabsorbed.
Tubular reabsorption of glucose - I filtrate [glucose] → all glucose reabsorbed
- filtrate [glucose] = transport max → all carrier sites for glucose occupied
- 1 filtrate [glucose] → glucose in urine
Diabetes mellitus → 1 blood [glucose] → 1 filtrate [glucose] > glucose transport max → glucose in urine
Diabetes Mellitus - Type 2
Type 2: reduced responsiveness to insulin (non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus; NIDDM)
* ~ 90% of diabetics
* risk factors: genes, age and obesity
* treated by changes in diet & exercise
Obesity - What is it?
Having a very high amount of body fat in relation to lean body mass.
Body Mass Index (BMI):
A measure of a person’s weight in relation to their height.
BMI (kg per m3) = weight / height?
Overweight: BMI >25 kg per m2
Obese:
BMI >30 kg per m?
Obesity - How big is the problem?
- > 600 million people worldwide are obese
- > 2 billion are overweight
- Around 1/3 Australians are obese and another 1/3 are overweight (doubled in the last 20 yrs)
- Mostly reflects excessive caloric intake (relative to energy expenditure)
Fats & Lipids
We can’t survive without fats & lipids in our diet.
* Used for:
* fuel (energy reserve)
* building cell membranes
* to cushion organs, e.g. kidneys, eyes
* provide insulation (hypodermis of skin)
* Stored in adipose tissue
* Fat-soluble vitamins stored in adipose tissue
* Liver can make most fats from protein and carbohydrates
* The fats it cannot make are the “essential fatty acids”
Obesity -
What’s driving it?
- Why do we gorge on high-calorie food?
- Humans evolved to cope with variable food supply.
- Capacity to store energy is a selective advantage.
- Higher incidence of obesity in certain human populations.
- Genes-environment mismatch.
- Obesity is NOT a personal failing!!!