chapter 1

1. chapter1 Introduction to Nutrition for Exercise and Health 1 Introduction to Sports Nutrition Dr. Iftikhar Alam, PhD, RD Nutrition for Physical Activity Lecture 1 Author name here for Edited books

2. Sports Nutrition Introduction • Proper nutrition can help: • Improve exercise performance • Decrease recovery time from strenuous exercise • Prevent exercise-associated injuries due to fatigue • Provide the fuel required during times of high-intensity training • Control weight • Help reduce the risk of numerous chronic diseases • T2DM, CVD, hypertension, obesity, osteoporosis, some cancers

3. Role of Nutrition in Exercise and Sport

4. Role of Nutrition in Exercise & Sport • Nutrition plays a vital role in exercise performance and training • Benefits both competitive and recreational athletes • Good nutrition is especially important for athletes who: • Compete in sports tournaments • Engage in strenuous PA on a daily or more than daily basis • Examples?

5. Injury Reduction • Risk of injury during exercise • Fuel & hydration status impacts level of fatigue and ability to concentrate • Risk of injury post-exercise • Proper nutrition can help speed the healing process for injured athletes • Surgery / Bone Injuries: requires extra kcal & nutrients, including protein, vitamins, and minerals

6. Weight Control / Body Composition • Nutrition plays an important role in weight control and body composition • Few individuals are happy with their weight, body fat levels, or body shape • Realistic expectations can improve health and quality of life and reduce stress levels • Disordered eating tendencies tend to be higher in athletes than the general population, esp. women

7. Essential Nutrients & Dietary Recommendations

8. Essential vs. Nonessential Nutrients • Discovery • Evolved from observations that certain diseases occurred in populations that consumed poor diets • Able to show that including specific foods in the diet could correct or prevent the diseases • Essential nutrients: food constituents that prevent disease or health problems (“indispensible”) • Nonessential nutrients: nutrients that could be deleted from the diet with no adverse health effects (“dispensable”) • E.g. physiologically essential nutrient for the body but classified as a nonessential nutrient?

10. Conditionally Essential Nutrients • Conditionally essential: some “essential” nutrients are synthesized by the body from precursors, and interactions between nutrients could alter requirements • Potentially affected by: • Some disease states • Genetic defects • Stress • Illness • Aging

11. Conditionally Essential Nutrients • Criteria to establish the conditional essentiality of a nutrient: • The plasma concentration of the nutrient declines into the subnormal range, although the body should be able to synthesize the nutrient. • Chemical, structural, or functional abnormalities appear that are associated with low blood concentrations of the nutrient. • Dietary supplementation of the nutrient returns plasma concentrations to normal and corrects the abnormalities seen when blood concentrations are low.

12. Desirable & Beneficial Nutrients • Nonessential nutrients that are important for good health and disease prevention • New nutrient category: “desirable or beneficial for health” (Carpenter and Harper, 2006) • Examples: fibre, phytochemicals, carotenoids, amino acid derivatives • Are NOT classified as essential or conditionally essential nutrients