Nutrition & Food Sciences

Nutritional supplements are substances which add nutrients to the diet or to lower the risk of health problems, like osteoporosis or arthritis. Nutritional Supplements include vitamins, minerals, fiber, amino acids, herbs or other plants, or enzymes. Sometimes, dietary supplements are also added to foods and drinks. However, only a certain amount of each nutrient is needed for our bodies to function, and higher amounts are not necessarily better as it may cause adverse effects, and may become harmful.

Nutrigenetics explains the relationships between genes, diet, and health outcomes. Population-based dietary recommendations aren’t adequate for all individuals since people respond differently to diets. Nutrigenetics bases dietary recommendations on genetic predisposition to the disease. Once personalized nutrition is integrated into routine care, patients can be genotyped for specific genetic variations, made aware of their chronic disease risk and nutrient deficiencies, and given strategies to dramatically reduce their risk.

Nutrigenomics is the study of how genes and nutrients interact at the molecular level and it can be helpful in finding out eating behaviors, food reactions, matching diet, nutritional needs and metabolic health factors. Nutrigenomics is already driving the next stage of growth for the nutrition industry. Nutrigenomic technology has been advanced, and nutrition companies are increasingly responding to opportunities. However, there is a lot more research to be done to fully provide the concept of nutrition and the role of genetics.

Nutrition plays a vital role in the prevention of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiac diseases, obesity and cancer. Evidence has shown that low-glycaemic index (GI) and low-carbohydrate diets are effective in the management of type-2 diabetes, and the role of vitamins, unsaturated fatty acids, and bioactive compounds in chronic disease management have been the subject of key research. Nutritional interventions are critical and central in the management of these chronic conditions. Many chronic diseases are the result of poor nutrition. Often, these diseases can be prevented or delayed with healthier eating habits.

Malnutrition can lead to serious health issues, including stunted development, eye problems, diabetes and coronary diseases. Malnutrition influences billions of individuals around the world. Some populations have a high risk of building up specific sorts of malnutrition relying upon their condition, way of life and resources. Scientific evidence has demonstrated that past the age of 2-3 years, the impacts of chronic malnutrition are irreversible. Maternal malnutrition builds the danger of poor pregnancy results including obstructed labor, premature babies and postpartum hemorrhage. Severe anemia during pregnancy is connected to expanded mortality at labor.

Nutrition in Cancer Care

Nutritional biochemistry broadens and deepens the understanding of many aspects of human biology including immunity, growth, and aging. Research in this complex field must integrate information from a myriad of fields including cellular and molecular biology, molecular genetics, physiology, epidemiology, and clinical medicine. Nutritional biochemistry is a vital field of study.

Nutritional Epidemiology examines methods for investigating the role of diet on long-term health. Students learn to critically review the epidemiologic evidence relating diet, anthropometry, and physical activity to heart disease, cancer, and other chronic health conditions including obesity and diabetes. Nutritional epidemiology is an exciting branch of research because it can provide insight into the potential causes and prevention of many health conditions. But it is also an extremely complex endeavor because many of the associations between dietary factors and disease risks are difficult to discern using epidemiological techniques.

Sports nutrition plays a key role in optimizing the beneficial effects of athletes’ physical activity. Consuming the right balanced diet is important for everyone and those actively participating in sports need to be aware of performance affects. This sports nutrition session will focus on the research works, in order to improve an athlete’s performance goals.

Obesity and Weight Management

The maintenance of appropriate nutrition in patients with an acute and chronic illness is known to be a fundamental part of patient care. Both enteral and parenteral routes can be used for nutritional support but there are insufficient randomized controlled trials comparing these routes in various disease states Parenteral nutrition, which was earlier synonymous with TPN is being reviewed with new interest again, with the concept of partial parenteral nutrition, that is, simultaneous intravenous nutrition with enteral nutrition.

Nutrition in Developing Countries covers food & nutrition security and discusses essential nutrition actions including breastfeeding, and complementary feeding in order to combat malnutrition in the developing countries. It describes how to work with households and communities so that they can keep well-nourished, and manage their nutrition challenges. It gives many ideas for nutrition training.

The nutritional value of foods depends on their composition, which shows a wide range of variation depending on the species, cultivar and maturity stage. The composition of foods includes a great number of metabolites however, it could be predicted that no single commodity might be rich in all these constituents. This session explores the general characteristics and novel findings of the components of foods, related to their benefits as food sources. The Nutrition Score is the first simple, transparent and straightforward method that can be applied globally and across all food and beverage categories to evaluate the nutritional composition. It can help food manufacturers to improve the nutritional value of their products. In addition, the nutrition Score can be a starting point for a powerful health indicator front-of-pack.

Food science explains the physical, biological, and chemical composition of foods, causes of food deterioration and the concepts underlying food processing whereas food technology describes the application of food science to the selection, preservation, processing, packaging, distribution, and its safe use.

• Food packaging
• Food processing
• Food processing waste technology
• Food contamination
• Food toxicology
• Food fortification
• Cereal technology
• Food fabrication

Food chemistry, a major aspect of food science, deals with the composition and properties of food and the chemical changes it undergoes during production, processing, and preservation. Food is available in abundance, much of it is processed, and the use of chemical additives is common. All of these concerns fall within the realm of food science—a science that deals with the physical, chemical, and biological properties of foods as they relate to stability, cost, quality, processing, safety, nutritive value, wholesomeness, and convenience.

• Food quality and safety
• Carbohydrates in foods
• Flavor chemistry
• Chemistry of food proteins
• Lipid chemistry

Foods and microorganisms have interesting associations which developed long before the beginning of recorded history. Foods are not only nutritious to consumers but are also an excellent source of nutrients for microbial growth. Depending upon the microbes present, foods may spoil or preserve the food by fermentation. During the entire sequence of food handling from the production to consumption, microorganisms can affect food quality and human health.

• Advanced Techniques in Food Microbiology
• Microbial metabolism of food components
• Beneficial microbes
• Foodborne pathogens
• Microbial Spoilage & Public Health Concerns
• Food enzymology

Foods undergo changes as a result of the processing; such changes may be physical, chemical, enzymatic, or microbiological. It is necessary to know the kinetics of chemical changes that occur during the processing of foods. Such quantitative knowledge is essential to the design and analysis of food processes. In this session, we review some selected physical and chemical concepts that are important in food engineering.

• Packaging concepts
• Preservation Processes
• Food dehydration/ drying
• Rheology of foods
• Thermal processing of foods

This session will deal with the in-depth knowledge in various unit operations and basic concepts in dairy processing; understanding of advances in theoretical and practical aspects of food processing; membrane technology and its applications in dairy processing; basic and advanced knowledge of dairy and food packaging.

• Advances in livestock production and management
• Whey proteins
• Forage quality and conservation
• Health management in dairy herds
• Animal nutrition
• Processing of milk products
• Fermented milk products

Advanced food analysis deals with the latest developments, applications, and study of analytical procedures in the characterization of foods and their constituents. This session offers to provide knowledge on the latest methodologies and advancements in assessing the quality of foods and nutritional supplements.

• Advanced instrumental analysis
• Food microstructure analysis
• Macromolecular food analysis
• Advanced food sensory evaluation