Nutrition: A brief introduction

Our body cells and organisms need constant nourishment. Nutrition provides them with nourishment through essential resources in the form of food to sustain life. The food, especially the healthy diet, we intake protects us from many a health problem we encounter in our life.

To guide us on healthy dietary habits we have dietitians. These professional are diet experts whose job it is to plan our meals so that we get optimum utility of the food in the form of nutrition. The dietitians counsel us on safe and balanced diet to maintain a disease free healthy life style.

A diet deficient in nutrition is detrimental to our health. It causes diseases. There are many anomalies that are direct consequence of poor and unhealthy diet. Among them are kwashiorkor, beriberi and scurvy.

Even obesity and metabolic syndrome is offshoot of unhealthy dietary habits. They lead to chronic systemic diseases. Among them are diabetes, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis.

These days, the main focus of the science of nutrition is metabolism, thanks to the progress made in molecular biology and genetics. Nutritional science traces metabolic and physiological responses of the body to diet. It dwells on metabolic pathways through which substances transform themselves.

Water, carbohydrates, amino, fatty and nucleic acids are the chemical compounds a human body is made up of, which consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, iron, zinc, magnesium, manganese among other such elements.

These compounds and elements in the form or combination of vitamins, hormones, hydroxyapatite, phospholipids etc. are absorbed by the body through the digestive system before getting disseminated to the cells through the bloodstream.

Fresh unprocessed foods are digested into the body system more easily than routine processed foods. The whole unprocessed foods are consumed slowly allowing enough time to digest and hence absorbed better.

A balanced diet with nutrients per Calorie is essential for sustained growth of cell and mitosis (cell division). It is also useful in managing appetite and blood sugar. Ideally, meals should be had regularly with a gap of few hours. Infrequent, haphazardly taken meals create all sorts of problems and result in indigestion.