[Music] welcome to the module basics of nutrition my name is cyrus and i will guide you through all the lessons in this module our three main goals are to learn about the fundamental compounds that make up our food to discover the key developments in the history of nutritional sciences and to understand the role of macro and micronutrients in our health at the end of this module you will be able to describe the role of carbohydrates proteins and fats in our diet list the most important milestones in the history of nutritional sciences explain some of the common myths and preconceptions about nutrition deficiencies and the ncd crisis talk about the health-providing properties of vitamins minerals phytochemicals and fiber and give general tips on the best dietary patterns for optimal health now this might all sound quite theoretical but don't worry this module will be a bit different from your typical biochemistry course we've made sure to include practical information whenever possible so that you take away clinically relevant nutrition knowledge that will help you become even better physicians and healthcare professionals on top of that we also include some fun nutrition history facts knowing how scientists develop their understanding of nutrition will help us understand the current approaches to nutrition and health so how does this module work this module consists of a series of video lessons at the end of each lesson you'll take a short quiz to test your knowledge before moving on to the next lesson you can complete the module at a pace that works for you and your schedule watch the videos and take the quizzes as many times as you like until you feel confident that you've soaked up the information whenever you see this icon and hear this sound the information i gave you is an important fact all of these key facts and figures will be collected throughout the module and sent to a cheat sheet that's enough technical talk let's move on to the good stuff allow me to introduce the contents of this module to you throughout this module we will be traveling across time we use the best free technology available on the market today to bring you the most cutting edge special effects so you don't get lost every time we go back in time you will see this animation and when we come back to the present you'll see this animation oh we went a bit too far uh back up 100 years please on our journey across time we will meet some famous historical figures who helped shape the nutritional sciences as we know them today in order to give you the most immersive experience possible we use the same top-notch free technology in order to most accurately recreate what these personalities might have sounded like let's begin with our first stop which will help us understand what kind of research shaped the modern perspective of nutrition so are you ready for a bit of time traveling let's jump on our time machine and get going welcome to the 18th century where many things that are common knowledge today were yet to be discovered may i introduce you to the pan academy students pam students allow me to introduce you to antoine laurent de lavoisier the founder of modern chemistry mr lavoisier may we take a look at your lab please well yes of course you are very welcome just do not knock anything over ah merci beaucoup we are in lavoisier's lab in paris now one example of something that's just about to be discovered is the idea that our bodies need fuel or energy as we call it in the 21st century with this impressive apparatus monsieur la bosie discovered that our bodies burn fuel in a combustion reaction and also emits co2 as a by-product just like the futuristic fuel-burning engines that have only just been developed too the new discovery that food is fuel for our bodies might not sound like a massive achievement from our perspective today but as science historian elizabeth maswalt points out it was a basis for determining what someone needs to survive what leads to weight gain what leads to weight loss what enables physical labor and what the relationship between food and physical labor is in the end lavoisier's research also led to the investigation of food composition so his work helped kick-start the nutritional revolution that was about to follow okay i always enjoy having visitors merci purvotre visit let's sleep forward into the 19th century chemist justice von liebig invented the so-called cali apparatus with which he and his doctoral students analyzed the carbon content of numerous organic substances or in other words he analyzed their carbohydrate content two of the many nutritional researchers he trained fon void and von patenkova built a chamber large enough to hold a large living animal with the purpose of measuring carbon and nitrogen input and output with this chamber they were able to estimate human protein requirements so basically these folks laid the groundwork for protein shakes and i guess even back then they could have become quite rich with that idea anyways a postdoc in front voigt's lab built another pretty large chamber and determined the energy equivalence of the main food components his name was wilbur olin atwater and his measurements were of such high precision that we still know them today by his name the atwater factors they describe how many calories are contained in each of the macronutrients so proteins carbohydrates and fats he also coined the term calorie as the energy unit of food energy content of food is still important nowadays and we still measure it in kilocalories although the official unit is kilojoule one kilocalorie equals about 4.19 kilojoule in most countries we find both of these energy values listed on food packaging interestingly the reason for nutritional research back then was quite different their focus was not on the health of individuals but rather on finding the cheapest easiest methods to feed institutionalized and impoverished populations we'll take a look at how research shifted towards investigating the relation between nutrition and disease throughout this module we hope you'll enjoy learning more about the fascinating history of nutritional sciences as we go through the lessons of this module but for now let's summarize our takeaways from this introduction lavoisier taught us that food is fuel for the body and researchers in the 19th century coined the term calorie as the energy unit for food the energy content of food is measured in kilocalories and kilojoules so are you ready to learn more about nutrition let's get your brains warmed up with a question do you know the values of the add water factors or in other words do you know how many kilocalories protein carbohydrate and fat contain per gram find out in lesson one where we'll take a closer look at macronutrients [Music] you