The science of nutrition is the discipline that has as its object the study of the medical and biological aspects of nutrition. Its purpose is to improve nutrition and prevent disease states that can result from incorrect food intake, from obesity , overweight to cancer (according to what is reported by the WHO , the World Health Organization ).
A bit of history
The term ” nutrition ” is used in several Latin treatises on the themes of nutritional sciences and more generally in all Romance languages derived from Latin is used as a synonym for nutrition . At the level of science, in fact, nutrition is based on a very simple concept: just like the intake of medicines, the ingestion of foods of any kind within our body involves different reactions by the body and can cause diseases or solve health problems according to the type of diet.
As we know, nutrition is a typical characteristic of every living being and is usually distinguished on the basis of the predominant type of food. In the case of humans, it has been proven that since ancient times, species even antecedent to Homo sapiens sapiens , such as Homo sapiens and Homo erectus which was already able to practice cooking food, ate both meat and fish and vegetables falling into the class of omnivores. Of course, the exceptions and extreme cases are not excluded, among which we remember the Inuit, a people of the Arctic that is part of the Eskimo populations and whose members eat almost only meat. Likewise, there are some tribes living in tropical areas that feed entirely on vegetables.
The main change in the typology of human nutrition occurred in the Neolithic, about 10,000 years ago, with the development of agriculture and livestock. Moving from a hunting and gathering system to more sedentary food collection methods, man quickly switched to a diet based on carbohydrates from cereals and vegetable proteins from legumes and increased the consumption of animal proteins derived from it. from products such as milk, eggs, meat from farm animals.
Training path
To date, nutrition is a real science and in Italy the profession of nutritionist can be carried out by graduates in Medicine and Surgery who have obtained the Specialization diploma in Clinical Nutrition Sciences, or by graduates in Biology , Biotechnology , Food and Human Nutrition and related degrees that are enrolled in section A of the professional register of biologists. The latter can also attend the School of Specialization in Food Sciences but with a different address from the clinical one, reserved for doctors only.
