Human Nutrition

Why do we need food?

To provide energy
To allow growth and repair
To stay healthy

What is a balanced diet?

A balanced diet is a diet that contains all the main nutrients in the correct
amounts and proportions to maintain good health.

Nutrients
A nutrient is a substance needed by organisms to stay alive and
healthy. A healthy human diet involves seven different kinds of
nutrient:

 carbohydrates
 proteins
 lipids(fats and oils)
 minerals
 vitamins
 dietary fibre
 water
Some foods are particularly rich in certain nutrients. The table
shows why we need each nutrient, and some good sources of
each one:
 Nutrient Use in the body Good sources

Cereals, bread, pasta, rice and

Carbohydrate To provide energy
potatoes

Fish, meat, eggs, beans, pulses

Protein For growth and repair
and dairy products

Lipids (fats and To provide energy. Also to store energy in the

Butter, oil and nuts
oils) body and insulate it against the cold.

Salt, milk (for calcium) and

Minerals Needed in small amounts to maintain health
liver (for iron)

Vitamins Needed in small amounts to maintain health Fruit, vegetables, dairy foods

To provide roughage to help to keep the food

Dietary fibre Vegetables, bran
moving through the gut

Water Needed for cells and body fluids Water, fruit juice, milk

1.
2. 1
Energy needs
 Each person needs a different amount of energy depending on factors such as:

 gender (male or female)

 age
 amount of daily activity
If you look on the side of food packets you will see the food's energy content. This is usually
measured in kilojoules, kJ. For example, a one-year-old baby needs 3850 kJ each day to continue
to grow, whereas an adult Olympic swimmer in training needs 15,600 kJ each day. Someone
who sits at a desk all day will need less food than their twin who climbs ladders all day to wash
windows.

Too thin, too fat

If the amount of energy you get from your food is different from the amount of energy you need,
your diet will be imbalanced:

 too little food may lead to a person being underweight

 too much food may lead to a person being overweight

Eating more food than you need can make you overweight
For a given height, there is a range of body weight that is thought to be healthy.

A weight against height chart for men and women aged 18 and over
Starvation happens if you eat so little food that your body becomes very underweight. This can
eventually cause death. Obesity happens when you eat so much food that your body becomes
very overweight. This can also cause death, for example through an increased chance of heart
disease.
 Effects of a poor diet
A balanced diet is one that contains the correct amounts of all the necessary nutrients needed for
healthy growth and activity. An imbalanced or poor diet can contain too much or too little of a
particular nutrient. If you have too little of a particular nutrient, we say that you have
a deficiency in that nutrient. For example, fibre is needed to keep food moving through the
intestines easily, and people who have a fibre deficiency in their diet may get constipation.

Mineral deficiencies

Goitre, a neck swelling caused by iodine deficiency

You only need small amounts of the different minerals in your diet to stay healthy, but mineral
deficiencies can make you ill. For example:

 iron deficiency can cause anaemia, where there are too few red blood cells
 iodine deficiency can cause a swelling in the neck called goitre

Vitamin deficiencies

Bleeding gums and loose teeth caused by scurvy

 Like minerals, you only need small amounts of the different vitamins in your diet to stay healthy,
but you become ill if you do not get enough. For example:

 vitamin A deficiency can cause blindness

 vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, which makes the gums bleed
 vitamin D deficiency causes rickets, which makes the legs bow outwards in growing children

1.
 Alimentary canal/Digestive system

Small intestine –beginning-duodenum

End-ileum
Large intestine –beginning-colon
End- rectum
Ingestion-taking food into the body
Digestion-converting large insoluble molecules to small soluble molecules. This
happens in two ways,
Mechanical digestion-breaking large food in to small pieces.Ex; in the mouth
with the help of teeth food is broken into small pieces.
Chemical digestion-changing the chemical composition.
Ex; converting carbohydrates into glucose.
Absorption
Absorption of small molecules in to blood by the ileum.
Assimilation
Building large complex molecules using basic units.
Egestion
Removal of left out materials in the form of faeces.

video
 Sphincter muscle, any of the ring like muscles surrounding and able to contract or
close a bodily passage or opening. One of the most important human sphincter muscles
is the sphincter pylori, a thickening of the middle layer of stomach muscle around the
pylorus (opening into the small intestine) that holds food in the stomach until it is
thoroughly mixed with gastric juices. Other sphincters are involved in excretion of
waste: the sphincter ani externus keeps the anal opening closed by its normal
contraction, and the sphincter urethrae is the most important voluntary control of
urination

Peristalsis
Food is moved through the digestive system by a process called peristalsis. Two sets of
muscles in the gut wall are involved:

 circular muscles - which reduce the diameter of the gut when they contract
 longitudinal muscles - which reduce the length of the gut when they contract
The muscles work together to produce wave-like contractions. These have a ‘squeezing
action’ that pushes the bolus through the gut.
Adaptations of the small intestine to absorb nutrients

 Absorption is the movement of digested food molecules from the digestive system into the
blood (glucose and amino acids) and lymph (fatty acids and glycerol)
 This takes place in the second section of the small intestine, the ileum
 The ileum is adapted for this function as it is very long and has a highly folded surface with
millions of villi (tiny, finger like projections)
 These adaptations massively increase the surface area of the ileum, allowing absorption to
take place faster and more efficiently
 Microvilli on the surface of the villus further increase surface area for faster absorption of
nutrients
 Wall of villus is one cell thick meaning that there is only a short distance for absorption to
happen by diffusion and active transport
 Well supplied with a network of blood capillaries that transport glucose and amino acids
away from the small intestine in the blood
 Lacteal runs through the center of the villus to transport fatty acids and glycerol away from
the small intestine in the lymph.

Structure and adaptations of a Villus (singular; plural – villi)

 Structure of a villus

Assimilation

Assimilation is making of large molecules using small molecules absorbed into the blood stream.

Ex

Many amino acids will join to form a protein.

Liver produces bile and it is stored in the gall bladder.

 Bile, neutralizes the acidity of food
Emulsification of lipids (breaking large lipid particles to tiny particles)

Digestion of nutrients

Enzyme Action in the Alimentary Canal

 The purpose of digestion is to break down large, insoluble molecules (carbohydrates,

proteins and lipids) into small, soluble molecules that can be absorbed into the
bloodstream
 Food is partially digested mechanically (by chewing, churning and emulsification) in
order to break large pieces of food into smaller pieces of food which increases the
surface area for enzymes to work on
 Digestion mainly takes place chemically, where bonds holding the large molecules
together are broken to make smaller and smaller molecules
 Chemical digestion is controlled by enzymes which are produced in different areas of
the digestive system
 There are three main types of digestive enzymes – carbohydrases, proteases and
lipases

Carbohydrases: Basics

 Amylases are produced in the mouth and the pancreas (secreted into the duodenum)
 Amylases digest starch into smaller sugars
 Th
e digestion of starch

Carbohydrases

 Amylase is secreted into the alimentary canal in the mouth and the duodenum (from the
pancreas) and digests starch to maltose (a disaccharide)
 Maltose is digested by the enzyme maltase into glucose on the membranes of the
epithelium lining the small intestine

Proteases: Basics

 Proteases are a group of enzymes that break down proteins into amino acids in the
stomach and small intestine (with the enzymes in the small intestine having been
produced in the pancreas)
 The digestion of proteins

Proteases

 Protein digestion takes place in the stomach and duodenum with two main enzymes
produced:
o Pepsin is produced in the stomach
o Trypsin is produced in the pancreas and secreted into the duodenum

Lipases

 Lipase enzymes are produced in the pancreas and secreted into the duodenum
 They digest lipids into fatty acids and glycerol

The
digestion of lipids
The Role of Hydrochloric Acid

 The stomach produces several fluids which together are known as gastric juice
 One of the fluids produced is hydrochloric acid
 This kills bacteria in food and gives an acid pH for enzymes to work in the stomach

Extended Only
How is a Low pH Helpful in the Stomach

 The low pH kills bacteria in food that we have ingested as it denatures the enzymes in
their cells, meaning they cannot carry out any cell reactions to maintain life
 Pepsin, produced in the stomach, is an example of an enzyme which has a very low
optimum pH – around pH 2
 The hydrochloric acid produced in the stomach ensures that conditions in the stomach
remain within the optimum range for pepsin to work at its fastest rate

Extended Only
The Role of Bile

 Cells in the liver produce bile which is then stored in the gallbladder
 Bile production and secretion

Bile has two main roles:

 It is alkaline to neutralise the hydrochloric acid which comes from the stomach
 The enzymes in the small intestine have a higher (more alkaline) optimum pH than those
in the stomach
 It breaks down large drops of fat into smaller ones. This is known as emulsification.
The larger surface area allows lipase to chemically break down the lipid into glycerol and
fatty acids faster

Emulsification is the equivalent of tearing a large piece of paper into smaller pieces of paper.

This is an example of mechanical digestion, not chemical digestion – breaking something into
smaller pieces does not break bonds or change the chemical structure of the molecules which
make it up, which is the definition of chemical digestion.