Disease Knowledge Centres

  • Nutrition and Dietetics - Disease Topic Overview

    Nutrition is the process of consuming, absorbing, and using nutrients needed by the body for growth, development, and maintenance of life.1 Nutrition is also the multi-disciplinary science that studies metabolic processes (digestion) and eating behaviours (environmental factors and individual characteristics).

    Human foods consumed in the daily diet contain as many as 100,000 substances, but only 300 are classified as nutrients.1 Some of these are essential nutrients because the body can not synthesise them, meaning they must be consumed in the diet (most vitamins and all minerals).1

    Generally, nutrients are divided into two categories: macronutrients and micronutrients.1 Macronutrients are required daily in large quantities in order to enable people to perform their daily physical and mental activities.1 They include carbohydrates, proteins, fats and some minerals.1 Micronutrients are required daily in small quantities (milligrams to micrograms), and include vitamins and trace minerals that enable the body to use macronutrients.1

    Dietetics is the study of all the rules that govern human food, and is defined as "the application of the science of nutrition to the human being in health and disease".2 Diet is thus a "social norm" that varies over time, civilizations, religions or beliefs and depending on the level of nutritional knowledge.

    Maintaining an appropriate weight is important for physical and psychological health1.It is now recognized that nutritional imbalances are a major source of cardiovascular diseases3, and may be the origin of certain cancers4. Numerous diseases are caused or made worse by obesity.5 These include type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, ischemic heart disease, and stroke.5 Educating the general public about the importance of diet and nutrition is also a public health issue.

    1. Beers M.H. et al. The Merck manual of medical information. Merck research laboratories. Second home edition. 2003, : 16-21880-887.
    2. Judd P.A. Dietetics. EncyclopediaEncyclopaedia of Food Sciences and Nutrition, 2003, : 1886-1891.
    3. Ritchie S.A. et al. The link between abdominal obesity, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases. May 2007 ; 17 (4) : 319-326.
    4. Key T.J. et al. The effect of diet on risk of cancer. The Lancet. September 2002 ; 360 (9336) : 861-868.
    5. O'Brien P.E. et al. The extent of the problem of obesity. The American Journal of Surgery. December 2002 ; 184 ( 6-2) : S4-S8.

  • SGLT2-Inhibitors eCME Webcast

    Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus affects approximately 20.66 million people across the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy1. This leads to many complications including macrovascular and microvascular disease. Glycaemic control in diabetes is particularly important in reducing these complications; a 1% fall in HBA1C results in a 37.5% and 42.5% reduction in microvascular and peripheral vascular disease respectively2.

    There are numerous treatments for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. These act on receptors within various organs including the pancreas, muscle, adipose tissue, gastrointestinal tract and liver. A new class of drugs, SGLT2-Inhibitors act on the kidney, which itself plays an important role in glycaemic control.

    The eCME webcast entitled SGLT2-Inhibitors: Assessing the Evidence and the Potential Impact on Future Clinical Practice is ACCME/EACCME accredited. This activity has been designed to inform healthcare professionals on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and the role of SGLT2-Inhibitors in the treatment of this disease. To access the eCME accredited webcast click here.

    References

    1. IDF Diabetes Atlas 2010. http://www.idf.org/atlasmap/atlasmap.
    2. Stratton, I. et al. Association of glycaemia with macrovascular and microvascular complications of type 2 diabetes (UKPDS 35): prospective observational study. BMJ. 2000; 321: 405-412.

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The Prevention and Treatment of Obesity

Nutrition and Dietetics Drug Data - A-Z English

Drug Updates

Calcium Resonium 99.934% w/w Powder for Oral/Rectal Suspension
Calcium Resonium is an ion-exchange resin that is recommended for the treatment of hyperkalaemia associated with anuria or severe oliguria.
Cobalin-H Injection
Treatment of Addisonian pernicious anaemia.
Winfex XL 150mg
Major depressive disorder Winfex XL is indicated for the treatment of moderate to severe major depressive disorder including depression accompanied by anxiety.

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... refer more patients. In addition, these statistics don't appear to be weighted for deprivation which is one of the most important determinants of ...

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... I would defer on food and diet to my wife. Quite a lot of my patients tend to be low in Vitamin D [cold climate, poor diet, Muslim dress and lack of ...

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... to do so. Much though I like to think that they eat a very varied diet full of everything in reality they have their own view on what is and isn't ...

Latest Clinical Trials

Does Treating Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Obese Canadian Youth Improve Blood Sugar Control? (IMPACT Obesity)
To determine whether, in obese children with moderate-severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea who are prescribed Positive Airway Pressure(PAP) therapy, increased hours of PAP usage per night over a one-year period is associated with a greater improvement in HOMA-IR
Sleep and Obesity in Teenagers
This study aims to investigate 1.whether sleep extension results in improvements of endocrine and metabolic markers of obesity and diabetes in obese teenagers, 2.the relationship between habitual sleep quality and duration and markers of obesity and diabetes in lean and obese teenagers

Latest Journal Publications

Food Chemistry
The interaction between oat β-glucan and other food components has the potential to influence starch digestibility and consequently affect its bioactivity in reducing glycemic responses. Blood glucose concentrations were measured before and after ingesting wheat and oat granolas, with 0.6 and 6.2 g of β-glucan, respectively, and two starch doses (40 and 60 g). As the in vitro extract viscosity of β-glucan increased, the in vitro starch digestibility was reduced and the glucose responses were lowered. The peak blood glucose response (PBGR) and the incremental area under the curve (iAUC) were lower in the 40 g than in the 60 g starch formulation. β-Glucan was significantly more active in reducing PBGR and iAUC when the β-glucan/starch ratio was 1.6:10 rather than 1.1:10. This information is valuable for new product development and for quality assessment of bioactive foods containing oat β-glucan.
Regulatory Peptides
We studied whether serum fasting levels of active form of peptide YY (PYY), PYY(3–36), are associated with obesity and related phenotypes. The study population consisted of 428 patients with coronary artery disease and diagnosed type 2 diabetes and 440 patients with coronary artery disease but without evidence of diabetes from the ARTEMIS study. The patients were recruited from the consecutive series of patients undergoing coronary angiography in the Oulu University Hospital. The patients without diabetes underwent a 2-hour oral glucose tolerance test. PYY(3–36) levels were analyzed by human PYY(3–36) specific radioimmunoassay. Result suggested that when PYY(3–36) tertiles were considered, high serum fasting PYY(3–36) concentration was associated with high body mass index, waist circumference, hemoglobin A1c, fasting blood glucose, leptin, triglyceride (p for all p ≤ 0.001), serum insulin (p = 0.013) and with a low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (p = 0.004) concentrations in the analyses adjusted for age, sex and study group. The link high PYY(3–36)–high insulin level was evident in subjects with normal glucose tolerance (p < 0.05). The prevalence of diabetes was 72%, 46% and 30% in the highest, medium and lowest PYY(3–36) tertile (p < 0.001). The PYY(3–36) concentrations (after adjustment for age, sex and body mass index) were higher in type 2 diabetics compared to subjects with impaired fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance and normal glucose tolerance (p < 0.001 for trend). In conclusion, fasting PYY(3–36) concentrations in type 2 diabetic subjects are high. Although high PYY(3–36) is strongly linked to obesity and associated insulin resistance, the relation between PYY(3–36) and type 2 diabetes is independent of body fatness.

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Nutrition and Dietetics