Lesson 8 - Essential Nutritents and Human Nutrition
Lesson Objectives
Content Objective: Nutrients are important for the healthy functioning of the body and an imbalance of nutrients can lead to a number of different disorders.
Book Reference:
Syllabus Statements (Opt D.1)
Essential nutrients cannot be synthesized by the body, therefore they have to be included in the diet.
Dietary minerals are essential chemical elements.
Vitamins are chemically diverse carbon compounds that cannot be synthesized by the body.
Some fatty acids and some amino acids are essential.
Lack of essential amino acids affects the production of proteins.
Malnutrition may be caused by a deficiency, imbalance or excess of nutrients in the diet.
Overweight individuals are more likely to suffer hypertension and type II diabetes.
Starvation can lead to breakdown of body tissue.
Application: Production of ascorbic acid by some mammals, but not others that need a dietary supply.
Application: Cause and treatment of phenylketonuria (PKU)
Application: Lack of Vitamin D or calcium can affect bone mineralization and cause rickets or osteomalacia.
Skill: Determination of the energy content of food by combustion.
Skill: Use of databases of nutritional content of foods and software to calculate intakes of essential nutrients from a daily diet
Activites
Activity 2 - Use the following nutritional database to anaylse your nutrient intake. You will need to make a chart like this:
Activity 3 - Deficiences
You will be assigned two deficiencies and you will need to figure out what the symptoms are and then "mimic" those symptoms to your "doctor." Your "doctor" will ask questions related to the deficiency. This role play will be done in front of the class and we will guess what the deficiency might be.
See this classic Seinfield clip for inspiration.
Possible deficiencies:
- Vitamin D deficiency
- Calcium deficiency
-Vitamin C deficiency
-PKU
Home Learning
A. Strengthen Your Skills
Bioninja - Vitamins (vi, vii, ix)
Bioninja - Malnutrition (i, vi)
Bioninja - Amino Acids - Skip PKU (v)
Bioninja - Lipids - Skip Cholesterol (iv)
IBBIologyhelp - focus on the relevant syllabus topics (i-ix)
B. Expand Your Knowledge