Nutrition

Nutrition is the study of the relationship between food and drink and states of health and disease. fix this sentence....especially to determining an optimal diet for purposes of health, weight loss[?], body building, or other purposes. It is practiced by nutritionists. Need some discussion of role of a dietician.

There exists a large category of disease which are thought to be caused, at least in part, by malnutrition, or the lack of proper nutrition (seeDr. Joel Fuhrman). These include :

• heart disease
• somecancers
• diabetes
• beriberi
• rickets
• scurvy
• vitamin deficiency disease[?]
• kwashiorkor
• pellagra[?]
• poor immune[?] function, potentially leading to a wide range of other illnesses.

Additionally, several diseases directly or indirectly are impacted by diet, or require very close attention to diet. These include

• metabolic or nutritionally related disease such as diabetes or endemic goitre.
• various eating disorders such as binge eating[?], anorexia nervosa, or bulimia

Current dietary guidelines in the United States are presented in the concept of a food pyramid. Detailed information on general nutrition is available at the Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Information Center, at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/.

Some concepts in nutrition include these need to be filled out

• calorie
• vitamins and minerals
• proteins
  • essential amino acids
  • limiting amino acid and net protein utilization
• fats
  • saturated fat[?]
• carbohydrates
  • sugars
  • starches
• dietary fiber
• cholesterol
  • "good" cholesterol (HDL cholesterol)
  • "bad" cholesterol (LDL cholesterol)
• elimination diets[?]

Controversies in modern nutrition include:

• The current disparity in food availability between first and third world populations, see famine and poverty
• How large a place dairy products should take in the food pyramid
• How much meat and animal products is appropriate in diet, see also vegetarian and vegan
• How essential to proper digestion are the enzymes contained in food itself, which are usually destroyed in cooking (see Living foods diet)
• Should genetic engineering be used the production of food crops and animals
• Are the use of pesticides, and fertilizers damaging to the foods produced by use of these methods, see also organic farming
• nutritional supplements in the form of pills, powders, liquids
• herbal supplements in the form of pills, powders, liquids
• use of antibiotics and hormones in animal farming