Nutrition Science: Nutrients, Metabolism & Health

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

Every headline about food contradicts the last one, and yet beneath the noise lies a rigorous, evidence-based science that explains exactly how nutrients are digested, absorbed, metabolized, and put to work in the human body. This course strips away diet culture and supplement marketing to reveal nutrition as it is studied in universities and applied in clinics — a quantitative discipline at the intersection of biochemistry, physiology, and public health. Whether you are preparing for a career in dietetics, medicine, nursing, or public health, or simply want to read nutrition research with confidence, this is the foundation you need.

You will begin with the principles of energy measurement, digestion, and the Dietary Reference Intakes framework that defines how much of each nutrient a person actually needs. You will then dive deep into macronutrients — the classification and digestion of carbohydrates, glycemic response, dietary fiber and the gut microbiome, amino acid quality and protein turnover, nitrogen balance, fatty acid chemistry, essential fatty acids, and lipoprotein metabolism. The course continues with a systematic survey of micronutrients including fat-soluble and water-soluble vitamins as metabolic coenzymes, major minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, and potassium, and trace minerals including iron, zinc, copper, selenium, and iodine, along with their classical deficiency and toxicity syndromes.

Beyond individual nutrients, you will study basal metabolic rate, the thermic effect of food, indirect calorimetry, body composition assessment methods, and the hormonal regulation of energy balance. You will examine nutrition across the lifespan from pregnancy and lactation through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and aging, with attention to critical windows and sex-specific concerns. The course closes with clinical and public health nutrition, including nutrition assessment using the ABCD framework, protein-energy malnutrition, obesity pathophysiology, metabolic syndrome, and medical nutrition therapy for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, renal disease, and cancer. You will also learn to interpret food labels, evaluate bioavailability, and compare global dietary guidelines.

This course is designed for nutrition and dietetics students, medical and nursing students, public health professionals, and serious learners who want to think like a nutrition scientist rather than a follower of trends. No prior biochemistry expertise is required, only curiosity and a willingness to engage with rigorous content. Enroll today and build the durable, evidence-based understanding of human nutrition that will support your career and personal health decisions for decades to come.