HP Exam 1 Key Terms (Ch. 1-3)

• Nutrients: chemical substances used by the body that are necessary for life and growth; classes are carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water.
• Dietary Reference Intake (DRI): a set of five nutrient-based reference values used to plan and evaluate diets.
• Chronic Disease Risk Reduction Intake (CDRR): the level of intake associated with chronic disease; recommendation specifies “reduce intake if above…” for sodium; for a nutrient that is inversely associated with disease risk, such as potassium, the recommendation would be to “increase intake if lower than…”
• Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDAs): the average daily dietary intake level sufficient to meet the nutrient requirement of 97% to 98% of healthy individuals in a particular life state and gender group.
• Estimated Average Requirement (EAR): the nutrient intake estimated to meet the requirement of half the healthy individuals in a specific group.
• Adequate Intake (AI): an intake level though to meet or exceed the requirement of almost all members of a specific group; an AI is set when there is insufficient data to define and RDA.
• Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL): the highest average daily intake level of a nutrient that probably poses no danger to most individuals in the group.
• Acceptable macronutrient Distribution Ranges (AMDRs): an intake range for energy nutrients expressed as a percentage of total calories that is associated with a reduced risk of chronic disease.
• Estimated Energy Requirements (EERs): level of calorie intake estimated to maintain weight in normal-weight individuals based on age, sex, height, weight, and activity.
• Database: a comprehensive collection of related information organized by convenient access.
• Bioinformatics: an interdisciplinary field that uses computer science and information technology to develop and improve techniques that make it easier to acquire, store, organize, retrieve, and use complex biological data.
• Genomics: an area of genetics that studies the sequencing and analysis of organisms genome.
• Nutrigenomics: the study of the interaction between bioactive food components and genes and how that interaction impacts health and disease.
• Biomarker: a measurable biological molecule found in blood, other body fluids, or tissues that is a sign of a normal or abnormal process or of condition or disease.
• Carbohydrates are a class of energy-yielding nutrients that contain only carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, hence the common abbreviation of CHO.
• Simple sugars are a classification of carbohydrates that includes monosaccharides and disaccharides, commonly referred to as sugars.
• Complex carbohydrates are a group name for starch, glycogen, and fiber, composed of long chains of glucose molecules.
• Starch is the storage form of glucose in plants.
• Monosaccharides are single (mono) molecules of sugar (saccharide), the most common monosaccharides in foods are hexoses that contain six carbon atoms.
• Disaccharides, also known as double sugars, are composed of two (di) monosaccharides, examples include Sucrose, maltose, and lactose.
• Polysaccharides are carbohydrates consisting of many (poly) sugar molecules.
• Glycogen is the storage form of glucose in animals and humans.
• Soluble fiber or viscous fiber are non-digestible carbohydrates that tend to form which, gel-like compound in the stomach that may then be fermented by bacteria in the colon.
• Insoluble fiber or non-fermentable fiber are non-digestible carbohydrates that cannot be broken down by bacteria in the colon but absorb water.
• Dietary fiber consists of carbohydrates and lignin that are natural and intact components of plants that cannot be digested by human enzymes.
• Functional fiber, as proposed by the Food and Nutrition Board, consists of extracted or isolated non-digestible carbohydrates that have beneficial physiologic effects in humans.
• Total fiber is dietary fiber plus functional fiber.
• Added sugars are caloric sugars and syrups added to foods during processing or preparation, or consumed separately; do not include sugars naturally present in foods, such as fructose in fruit and lactose in milk.
• Glycemic response is the effect a food has on the blood glucose concentration; how quickly the glucose level rises, how high it goes, and how long it takes to return to normal.
• Glycemic index (GI) is a numeric measure of the glycemic response of a 50 g carbohydrate serving of a food sample; the higher the number the higher the glycemic response.
• Glycemic load (GL) is a formula that combines portion size and GI into one number to evaluate the impact on blood glucose levels.
• Ketone bodies are intermediate, acidic compounds formed from the incomplete breakdown of fat when adequate glucose is not available.
• Refined grains consist of only the endosperm (middle part) of the grain and therefore do not contain the bran and germ portions.
• Whole grains contain the entire grain, or seed, which is the endosperm, bran, and germ.
• Phytonutrients are bioactive, non-nutrient plant compounds associated with a reduced risk of chronic diseases; also known as phytochemical.
• Enriched foods are those where certain nutrients that were lost during processing have been added back.
• Fortified foods are those where nutrients that are not naturally present in the food or were present in insignificant amounts have been added.
• Intracellular: within cells
• Interstitial: between cells
• Edema: the swelling of the body tissues secondary to the accumulation of excessive fluids