PATH2220 Study Guide - Final Guide: Amnesia, Intellectual Disability, Endocrine System
Nutrition and Disease
What is Nutrition?
• Good nutrition → a balanced diet comprised of a mixture of the main
varieties of nutrients → proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, vitamins
• Essential nutrients → those that cannot be synthesized by the body →
water, amino acids, electrolytes, trace elements, vitamins
• Adequate nutrition important for health
o CV function
o Muscle strength
o Respiratory ventilation
o Would healing
o Protection from infection
• Understanding nutrition enables us to
o Optimize nutritional status, immunity, fertility and overall
wellbeing of an individual
o Prevent specific nutrient deficiencies
o Prevent loss of weight and lean body mass in chronic illness
o Maximize effectiveness of medical/pharmacological treatments
o Reduce inflammation and regulate gene expression
o Minimize healthcare costs
• Nutrition is not just diet → carbohydrate metabolism, lipid metabolism,
GI digestion/absorption
• Nutrition over the lifetime
o Childhood
▪ Obesity
▪ Protein-energy malnutrition
▪ Growth failure
▪ Eating disorders
o Pregnancy → optimizing maternal, foetal and infant help
▪ Appropriate weight gain
▪ Appropriate physical activity
▪ Avoidance of alcohol, tobacco and other harmful substances
▪ Safe food handling
Assessment of Nutritional Status:
• History → diet history
• Clinical → physical examination
o Fat assessment
▪ Tricep skin-fold thickness
▪ Operator dependent
o Skeletal muscle protein
▪ Arm muscle circumference calculation
▪ Hand-grip strength
• Investigations → haematological and biochemical tests
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Nutritional Deficiencies:
• Iodine
o Dietary trace material
o Heterogeneously distributed in the environment
o Iodised salt
o Seafood → rich source
o Required for synthesis of thyroid hormones which regulate vital
body functions
o Iodine deficiency
▪ Most common cause of preventable brain damage and
intellectual disability
▪ Affects 50 million people worldwide
▪ Important in pregnancy for foetal development
• Deficiency = cretinism
• Short stature, bony deformaties, intellectual
disability
▪ Chronic deficiency → goiter → enlargement of thyroid
gland
▪ In Australia → mandatory fortification of salt for break
making
• Vitamin D
o 2 forms
▪ Ergocalciferal → vitamin D2 → from plants and diet
▪ Choleralciferol → vitamin D3 → formed in the skin by
action of UV light
o Autocrine and paracrine function
o Involved in calcium homeostasis
o Vitamin D deficiency
▪ Populations at risk
• Ethnic groups
• Elderly/institutionalized
• Sun avoidance
• Chronically sick/disabled
• Obese people
• Workers in enclosed environments
▪ Disease correlation with vitamin D deficiency
• Osteoporosis
• Rickets
• Osteomalacia
• Vitamin A
o Also known as retinol, retinoic acid
o Functions → growth and development, good vision
o Sources → foods of animal origin, carotenes and breast milk
o Vitamin D deficiency
▪ Public problem in SE Asia and Africa
▪ Low retinol concentration
▪ Complications → blindness, premature death
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
