Lecturers:

Tomáš Soukup, M.D., Ph.D.

Seminars:

1. Natural regeneration. The relationship between nutrition and regeneration of the human body (healthy individual, athlete). Nutrition following workout, the role of natural food and supplements.

Workshop – model diet plans (medical student, manual worker, and athlete).

2. Flavonoids and organosulfur compounds in plant foods. Flavonoids: Properties and antioxidant effects. Occurrence in food; comparison of their functions in the original plant with those in human cells; bioavailability; metabolism; mechanism of action in cells and tissues. Important representatives in food. Other phenolics.The impact of cooking procedures on their content and bioavailability. Organosulfur compounds from Allium, glucosinolates from Brassiaceae; their beneficial and adverse effects.

3. Fats and other lipids, terpenoids, vitamin D. Introduction to the chemistry of terpenes, biochemical effects. Mono- a sesquiterpenes carotenoids and tocopherols in plant diet. The effect of cooking on their content and bioavailability. Lipids: composition of fatty acids in food (saturated, omega-9,- 6 a -3 unsaturated FAs; less common FAs). Furan FAs. Cholesterol, plant steroids. Vitamin D and its biochemical properties.

4. The formation of potentially harmful compounds during cooking and processing. Combinations of foods and their compatibility. Maillard reaction products such as acrylamide; lipid degradation products such as peroxides and aldehydes, cholesterol oxidation products; 3-chloro-1,2-propandiol; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, heterocyclic amines, N-nitrosamines etc. Combining foods to improve the bioavailability of selected plant compounds.

5. Specific diets and their health effects. Rational diet and its variants. Frequently used alternative diets – critical assessment according to evidence-based medicine: Atkins diet, paleo diet, primal, Whole30, vegetarianism, veganism, divided food. Why do people try such diets? Are they suitable for somebody? Biochemical aspects, pros and cons and possible deficiencies of alternative diets.