48.

1
Malnutrition
Unit 2: Nutrients, Digestive
System and Excretory System
Quick thinking:
What is
malnutrition?
 1. Define (one section of) malnutrition
in humans.
2. Relate how homeostatic mechanisms

Student contribute to a human’s energy

balance.

Objectives 3. Describe the relation between

appetite-regulating hormones,
obesity and evolution.
4. Explain when an adult is considered
overweight or obese.
 Concept:
Homeostatic mechanisms
contribute to a human’s energy
balance
Food energy balances the energy from
metabolism, activity, and storage.
Energy Sources and
Stores
• Nearly all of a human's ATP generation is
based on oxidation of energy-rich molecules:
carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
• Humans store excess calories primarily as
glycogen in the liver and muscles.
• When fewer calories are taken in than are
expended, fuel is taken from storage and
oxidized.
• Energy is secondarily stored as adipose, or
fat cells.
Review: What is a negative feedback loop?
 Question: What is a negative feedback loop?

Negative feedback loop occurs to reduce a change or output: the

result of a reaction is reduced to bring the system back to a stable
state. This can be referred to as homeostasis, as in biology.
Homeostasis:
90 mg glucose/
100mL blood
 Stimulus:
Blood glucose
level rises after
eating.

Homeostasis:
90 mg glucose/
100mL blood
 Stimulus:
Blood glucose
level rises after
eating.

Homeostasis:
90 mg glucose/
100mL blood
 Stimulus:
Blood glucose
level rises after
eating.

Homeostasis:
90 mg glucose/
100mL blood

Stimulus:
Blood glucose
level drops
below set point.
 Stimulus:
Blood glucose
level rises after
eating.

Homeostasis:
90 mg glucose/
100mL blood

Stimulus:
Blood glucose
level drops
below set point.
Review: The body can catabolize many substances as sources of
energy. Which of the following would be used as an energy
source only after the depletion of other sources?

a) Fat in adipose tissue.

b) Glucose in the blood.
c) Protein in muscle cells.
d) Glycogen in muscle cells.
e) Calcium phosphate in bone.
Review: The body can catabolize many substances as sources of
energy. Which of the following would be used as an energy
source only after the depletion of other sources?

a) Fat in adipose tissue.

b) Glucose in the blood.
c) Protein in muscle cells.
d) Glycogen in muscle cells.
e) Calcium phosphate in bone.
Review: An
athlete that runs a) Proteins
great distances b) Minerals
would obtain the c) Carbohydrates
greatest benefit d) Amino acids
from storing its e) Fats
energy as ...
Review: An
athlete that runs a) Proteins
great distances b) Minerals
would obtain the c) Carbohydrates
greatest benefit d) Amino acids
from storing its e) Fats
energy as ...
 Overnourishment
and Obesity
• Overnourishment causes obesity,
which results from excessive
intake of food energy with the
excess stored as fat.
• Obesity contributes to diabetes
(type 2), cancer of the colon and
breasts, heart attacks, and
strokes.
 Obesity Worldwide

• Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975.

• In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults (39%), 18 years
and older, were overweight. Of these over 650
million (13%) were obese.
• Most of the world's population live in countries
where overweight and obesity kills more people than
underweight.
• 38 million children (aged <5) were overweight or
obese in 2019.
• Over 340 million children and adolescents (aged 5-
19) were overweight or obese in 2016.
• Obesity is preventable.
 BMI for
obesity and
overweight
• Body mass index (BMI) is a simple
index of weight-for-height used to
classify overweight and obesity in
adults. 
• BMI provides the most useful
population-level measure (same for
sexes and all ages in adults). 
• It may not correspond to the same
degree of fatness in different
individuals.
Appetite-regulating
hormones

• Researchers have discovered several

of the mechanisms that help regulate
body weight.
• Homeostatic mechanisms are
feedback circuits that control the
body’s storage and metabolism of fat
over the long-term.
• Hormones regulate long-term and
short-term appetite by affecting a
“satiety center” in the brain.
Review: Which hormone(s) will
contribute to a human's satiety levels?

a) Only Ghrelin
b) Leptin from adipose tissue
c) PYY secreted from small intestines
d) Insulin secreted from the pancreas
e) Leptin, PYY, and Insulin
Review: Which hormone(s) will
contribute to a human's satiety levels?

a) Only Ghrelin
b) Leptin from adipose tissue
c) PYY secreted from small intestines
d) Insulin secreted from the pancreas
e) Leptin, PYY, and Insulin
Leptin and Obesity

• The complexity of
weight control in humans is
evident from studies of the
hormone leptin.
• Mice that inherit a defect in
the gene for leptin become
very obese.
Review: Leptin is a product of adipose cells.
Therefore, a very obese mouse would be expected to
have which of the following?

a) Increased gene expression of ob and decreased

expression of db.
b) Increased gene expression of db and decreased
expression of ob.
c) Decreased transcription of both ob and db.
d) Mutation of ob or db. 
Review: Leptin is a product of adipose cells.
Therefore, a very obese mouse would be expected to
have which of the following?

a) Increased gene expression of ob and decreased

expression of db.
b) Increased gene expression of db and decreased
expression of ob.
c) Decreased transcription of both ob and db.
d) Mutation of ob or db. 
 Critical Thinking: Suppose you
collected blood from a wild-life mouse
and a db mouse. Which would you
expect to have a higher concentration
of leptin, the satiety factor, and why?

  
 Most obese humans
provide normal or
increased levels of leptin
without satiety. What
could be an answer to at
least some human obesity?
 • The problem of maintaining weight
partly stems from our evolutionary
Obesity and Evoluti past, when fat hoarding was a means of
on survival.
Next: Dietary
Deficiencies in
Malnutrition
 Concept:
A human's diet must supply
chemical energy. Organic
molecules and essential nutrients
Diets that fail to meet the basic needs can lead
to either undernourishment
or malnourishment.
Dietary
Deficiencies
• Undernourishment is the
result of a diet that
consistently supplies less
chemical energy than the
body required.
• Malnourishment is the
long-term absence from
the diet of one or more
essential nutrients.
 Undernourishment

When a person is undernourished a series of events unfold:

• Use stored up fat and carbohydrates
• Breaking down proteins for fuel
• Muscles decrease in size
• Brain becomes protein-deficient
Human undernourishment is most common when drought,
war, or another crisis disrupts the food supply.
• AIDS Epidemic
• Sometimes is occurs as a result of eating disorders.
• Anorexia nervosa
 Malnourishment
• Potential effects of malnourishment are:
• Deformities
• Disease
• Death

• Worldwide 1 to 2 million young children die every

year from vitamin A deficiency.
• Among populations subsisting on simple rice diets,
individuals are often afflicted with vitamin A
deficiency (blindness or death).
• “Golden Rice” (includes beta-carotene)
 • Determining the ideal diet for the
human population is an important
but difficult problem for scientists.
• Genetically diverse
• Varied environments
• Ethical concerns
• The methods to study human
nutrition have changed dramatically
over time.
• An important approach is the study
of genetic defects that disrupts food
uptake, storage, or use.
• hemochromatosis.
• Many insights into human nutrition
have come from epidemiology, the
Assessing Nutritional Needs study of human health and disease
at the population level.
• Vitamin folic acid (B9) and
neural tube defects.
Complete the hierarchy-graph on Malnutrition
Quick thinking:
What is
malnutrition?
 • Malnutrition:

1. undernutrition:
What is
malnutrition? 2. micronutrient deficiencies:

3. overweight and obesity:

 • Malnutrition refers to deficiencies, excesses or
imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or
nutrients:
1. undernutrition: when a person does not get enough
food to eat, causing them to be wasted (too thin for
their height) and/or stunted (too short for their age).
Undernutrition increases the risk of infectious diseases
like diarrhea, measles, malaria and pneumonia, and
chronic malnutrition can impair a young child’s physical
What is and mental development.

malnutrition?
2. micronutrient deficiencies: when a person does not
get enough important vitamins and minerals in their
diet. Micronutrient deficiencies can lead to poor health
and development, particularly in children and
pregnant women.
3. overweight and obesity: linked to an unbalanced or
unhealthy diet resulting in eating too many calories
and often associated with lack of exercise. Overweight
and obesity can lead to diet-related noncommunicable
diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure
(hypertension), stroke, diabetes and cancer.
Review 1. Explain how people can become obese
even if their intake of dietary fat is
Questions relatively low compared with
carbohydrate intake.
2. Explain how PYY and leptin
complement each other in regulating
body weight.
3. If a zoo animal shows signs of
malnutrition, how might a researcher
determine which nutrient is lacking? 
Next: Diseases
related to
malnutrition