Nutrition

The materials that are needed to support  life are referred as nutrition. Nutrition is mainly concerned about physiological response of the in take of diet. It is essential for effective metabolic pathways. Human physique includes carbohydrates, proteins, fibers, amino acids, vitamins, lipids, nucleic acids etc. Humans ingest, absorb, digest and circulate the nutrients through the blood stream in order to provide nutritional supply for cells, tissues and organs to perform their metabolic functions.

Types of nutrients

Major classification of nutrient is as follows.

• Carbohydrates
• Fats
• Minerals
• Proteins
• Vitamins
• Water

The other classification of nutrients are micro nutrients and macro nutrients. Instance of micro nutrition are calories, simple carbohydrates such as monosaccharide, disaccharides and oligosaccharide, complex carbohydrates such as unsaturated polysaccharides, proteins such as essential and non essential amino acids, fibers like cellulose saturated fats, trans fat and unsaturated fat and that of micronutrients are Vitamin A, B₁, B₂, Niacin, B₁₂, C, D, E & K, Omega fats and cholesterol. Minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, chlorine and sulfur and trace minerals like cobalt, copper, chromium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, vanadium, zinc, iron and iodine are nutrients.

Need for nutritional supply

Balanced diet will promote good health and unhealthy food results in development of diseases. This is because food has all nutritional requirements to carry out metabolic functions. Improper intake of nutrition will result in toxin production, if an individual immune system is not effective. If it continues in long run, it results in development of chronic diseases. Proper nutrition helps in maintenance of BMI (Body Mass Index), prevention and cure of diseases. This ensures supply of required minerals, dietary fibers and vitamins. It also gives

• Well being
• Memory capacity
• High education setting
• Avoid depression
• Disorders
• Increased shelf life

Malnutrition

The excess, insufficient and imbalanced nutrition are referred as malnutrition. Most of the diseases develop due to imbalanced nutrition or intake of more nutrients. When an individual takes insufficient nutrition, it leads to depletion of energy resulting in bad health. Similarly, when an individual takes food continuously, then it may result in obesity of an organism. At times it leads to unexpected hair loss, irregular menstrual cycles in case of females and brittle nail.

When nutrients like calories, simple and complex carbohydrates, protein, omega fats, cholesterol, saturated, trans and unsaturated fats, then obesity and cardiovascular diseases can occur.

Nutrition imbalance

An unhealthy eating habit is referred as nutrition imbalance. When nutrient consumption is not evenly distributed throughout, individuals may have excess or less nutritional supply.