Overview of Course

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” – Hippocrates.
In this course we will explore the function of food consumption patterns, individual foods, and specific food constituents (nutrients and phytochemicals) in the promotion of health and the prevention of chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and cancer. We will explore in scientific detail how these diseases develop (i.e. pathology), and how/why specific dietary patterns and individual foods and food components increase or decrease risk for disease development. We will examine how and why the increasingly world-wide nutrition transition away from ancestral dietary patterns to consumption of highly processed foods, while having some benefits, may have put us at odds with our evolutionary biology. As we voyage to different parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia, we will have opportunities in port to discover local food practices, food patterns and food components that have the potential to enhance or detract from health status. The efficacy of foods purported to provide health benefits will be examined within the context of nutrient availability and metabolism, as well as results of published scientific studies. Students will develop skills in critically examining the quality of the scientific evidence for dietary contributions to health and disease.