NS 6320

Regulation of Macronutrient Metabolism

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

Course provides a comprehensive overview of macronutrient metabolism with an emphasis on issues relevant to human nutrition. Topics include regulation of macronutrient utilization by various tissues in response to food intake, energy stores, and energy expenditure; cellular pathways for integration of nutrient, growth, and stress signals; biological regulation of food intake and energy expenditure; the regulation of utilization of macronutrients for growth; dietary reference intakes for macronutrients; specialized functions of essential amino acids and essential fatty acids; lipoprotein and cholesterol metabolism; and the regulation, or dysregulation, of macronutrient utilization in various disease/physiological states.

When Offered Spring.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: NS 3310, or permission of instructor.

• Demonstrate an integrative understanding of macronutrient metabolism and how it is regulated in humans.
• Describe roles of macronutrients in providing fuels and synthetic substrates for net tissue deposition.
• Synthesize factual knowledge into an understanding of how macronutrient metabolism changes in response to food intake versus food deprivation and the major ways in which this is regulated in key tissues.
• Synthesize factual knowledge into a conceptual framework for the functions of macronutrient metabolism and its regulation in normal physiological processes (developmental programming, growth, immune function, regulation of food intake and energy expenditure, etc.
• Synthesize factual knowledge into a conceptual framework for understanding how macronutrient metabolism and its regulation (dysregulation), including tissue-specific roles, may contribute to disease or poorer health outcomes (e.g., obesity, metabolic disease, premature aging, malnutrition, impaired immune function).
• Describe functions of essential macronutrients (e.g., n-3 and n-6 fatty acids, essential amino acids).
• Describe metabolism of lipoprotein and cholesterol metabolism including their normal roles in macronutrient metabolism and disease processes.
• Use DRIs for macronutrients and energy and food composition data to calculate desirable energy and macronutrient intakes.

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