11.10.2021

The three most important nutrients for humans 1

What are the major nutrients?
How can carbohydrate be divided into? 
What are sugar and dietary fibbers, and how to work in our body?
What is protein and how it does work in our body?

What are the major nutrients?

The most important "carbohydrates", "lipids" and "proteins" are called the three major nutrients.

There are also 5 major nutrients including "minerals" and "vitamins", but I will explain the above 3 major nutrients this time and next time.

How can carbohydrate be divided into? 

Carbohydrates are composed of "carbon, hydrogen, oxygen", and divided into "sugar" and "dietary fiber".

Sugar is an energy source, and dietary fibre is not digested.

What is sugar and how it works in our body?

Sugar

Sugar is the most important nutrient for energy and accounts for 50-60% of the total energy that humans consume daily.

Sugar produces 4 kcal (17 kilojoules) of energy per gram in the body.

Compared to proteins and lipids, it is digested and absorbed more quickly, so it has an immediate effect as an energy source.

Sugar is the only source of energy to activate the brain.

However, sugars that are not used immediately after ingestion are stored as glycogen and fat in the liver, so excessive intake of sugars may lead to obesity.

What is dietary fibre and how it works in our body?

Dietary fibre is an indigestible component that cannot be digested by human digestive enzymes.

It is abundant in plant cell walls such as cereals, vegetables, and legumes, but it is also found in meat.

Although it does not become an energy source or a constituent of the body, the following functions are attracting attention.

How dietary fibre works?

1. Excrete harmful substances in the intestines to improve the intestinal environment
2. Water-soluble dietary fibre has the effect of delaying glucose absorption and promoting cholesterol excretion, and "prevents diabetes and hypertension."
3. Insoluble dietary fibre, which is insoluble in water, improves bowel movements, prevents constipation, and is effective in preventing colorectal cancer.
4. As the number of chewing in our mouths increases, it leads to strengthening of our jaw and prevention of tooth decay, and prevents overeating.

What is protein and how it does work in our body?

protein

Protein is a combination of many amino acids. It contains about 16% of nitrogen on average other than "carbon, hydrogen and oxygen".

About 100,000 kinds of proteins are required for humans, but these are made by combining about only 20 amino acids.

Of the approximately 20 amino acids, 9 cannot be synthesized by the human body and must be taken from food.This is called an essential amino acid.

In addition, proteins are roughly divided into animal proteins (meat, fish eggs, milk, dairy products, etc.) and vegetable proteins (beans, processed soybeans, etc.).

When comparing nutritional values ​​by amino acid value, vegetable protein tends to be lower than animal protein, but the amino acid value can be greatly improved by combining foods such as rice and fish.

This is called the supplementary action of proteins.

Protein is a material for muscles, internal organs, skin, claws, teeth, hair, blood, hormones, and works to condition the body like vitamins and minerals.

In addition, it produces 4 kcal (6.7 kj) of energy per gram, but it is used as an energy source when the intake of sugars and lipids is insufficient.

When there is a protein deficiency, the amount of haemoglobin in the blood that is produced by combining with iron decreases.This reduces the amount of iron that the blood carries throughout the body, causing iron deficiency anaemia.

Also, be aware that growing children may not be able to grow sufficiently.

English is my second language, so you may find incorrect sentences.

It would be great help if you leave a comment for me. 

Thank you for reading!