BIOL4325 - Nutrition and Metabolism

BIOL 4325 Nutrition and Metabolism (3 semester credit hours) This course examines nutrient utilization and requirements with an emphasis on multifaceted links between diet, health, genetics, microbiome, and diseases. The course intends to support studies towards medicine, health professions, biomedical research, and biotechnology. Topics cover the basis of nutritional physiological phenomena and metabolic hemostasis in the context of human development, aging, exercise, health and diseases. Integration of energy metabolism and physiological requirements concerning macronutrients and major vitamins and minerals as well as benefits of potentially-protective compounds in food are reviewed. How unbalanced intake of nutrients contributes to the initiation, development and severity of various chronic diseases, including coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, lipidemia, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, thyroid disorders, immune dysfunction, inflammatory conditions, cancer, and dysbiosis are discussed with relevance to clinical nutrition and public health. The course also introduces the fields of microbiomics, nutrigenomics, nutrigenetics and chrononutrition to explore evolving concepts concerning the influence of diet on intestinal microbiota and the effect of foods and sleep on metabolism and genes. Prerequisites: (BIOL 3361 and BIOL 3161) or equivalent and (BIOL 3362 and BIOL 3162) or equivalent. (3-0) S