Literature Review Of The Complexity Of Caregiver Burden Dealing With Aging Older Adult Population

Overview of nutrition

Nutrition is the process of absorbing, consuming and using nutrient from food needed by the body for development, growth and maintenance of life. Nutrition is a process of getting or obtaining food relevant for growth and health. To get appropriate nutrition needed by the body, people are required to consume a healthy diet.

History of nutrition

In 400 B. C. a Greek physician Hippocrates he was the father of medicine. He realized that a person’s body, health and mind is impacted by food to prevent illness and to maintain wellness. He then said, “Let thy food be medicine and thy medicine be food”. Foods have been used to affect health in the ancient times. Places like Hippocrates’ Greece, pre-modern Europe and Asia uses food as remedy. For example, liver juice was used to cure eye disease, garlic as used for athletes’ foot and eating ginger was used to stimulate metabolism.

In 1747, a doctor named James Lind was a physician he in British navy. He discovered that sailors who were traveling on long journeys were developing scurvy. He then performs an experiment by giving he fed a group with salt water, one group with vinegar and one group with limes. Those given the limes didn’t develop scurvy. It changed the way physicians think about food, creating a market for nutrition careers. Medical and Scientific development increased exponentially during the enlightenment and into the Victorian age. The transfer of food and oxygen into heat and water I the body to create energy was discovered by Antoine Lavoisier in 1770. He was the Father of Nutrition and Chemistry. In the early times of 1800s, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, the main components of food, were connected to health.

Justus Liebig of Germany worked on the chemical nature of food carbohydrate, fats and proteins and ed to research on vitamins in the 20th century. A polish doctor, Casimir Funk, in 1912 gave vitamins as essential factors in diet. Vitamins were first called vitamin which came from vital and amine because they are essential for life and are originally mistaken to be amines.

Classes of nutrients

The nutrients are divided into two. Those that are needed in large quantity (macronutrients) and those needed in small quantity (micronutrients). The macronutrients are:

1. Carbohydrates: They are basically known as Energy giving. It is the main source of energy. They compose of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen. The major food sources of it is grains, starchy vegetables e. g. yam.
2. Proteins: They are composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. They are macromolecules composed of chains of amino acids. The food sources that contains proteins are meat, seafoods, dairy products and plant-based foods.
3. Fats: They contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen but are not insoluble in water (they do not dissolve in water. They are found in foods like butter, oil, nuts, meat, nuts etc.
4. Water: It is the composition of Oxygen and Hydrogen and should be taken in large quantities. Without water nothing could be transported in and out of the body.

The micronutrients are:

5. Vitamins: There are thirteen vitamins and they are categorised into fat-soluble and water-soluble. The water soluble are all the vitamin B and C. While the fat-soluble are the vitamins A, D, E, and K.
6. Minerals: They are solid inorganic substance that are classified depending on how much of them we need. We have trace minerals and macrominerals. The trace minerals are needed in little quantity and they are ion, zinc, iodine etc. The macrominerals are needed in large quantity which are calcium, magnesium, potassium. A lot of vitamins are used to maintain enzyme function and others are used for fluid balance, nerve impulses, hormones and protect against harmful radicals.