The course aims to provide dietary and nutritional base knowledge that will required as support for further information on pharmafoods. In particular on nutritional properties, on the chemical composition and biological activity of ingredients in food supplements and foods for special diets.

The student acquires, based on fundamental notions of general diet, knowledge of the most important categories of food supplements, functional foods and dietary products including the specific legislation and presentation of these products for sale in pharmacies and their interaction with drugs therapies.

Program: fundamentals of Human Nutrition: Concepts and nutritious food. Nutritional and health goals. Security needs, and RDA and LARN, food guidelines. Labelling foods. Concept of Claim. Macronutrients: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, protein requirements, micro-nutrients: vitamins, minerals, classification, biological and nutritional aspects, food sources, essential nutrients (fatty acids, amino acids). Energy expenditure: basal energy expenditur, diet-induced thermogenesis, thermoregulation, physical, activity assessment methods. Effects on the nutritional value of food production techniques and food storage: processes which induce nutrient modification: Maillard reaction; lipidic peroxidation. Food Safety.  Food additives: definition, toxicity, some examples and use of the various classes. Health products: definitions, legal framework. Functional foods, definition and labelling, functional foods with intestinal target: probiotics and prebiotics, functional foods with blood target: phytosterols. Food supplements: definitions, legal framework, composition, guidelines, labelling, presentation and advertising. Fatty acids ω-3 (fish oils) and ω-6: food supplements based on fatty acid ω-3 and ω-6, purpose in primary and secondary prevention and epidemiological evidence. Antioxidants: classification, mechanisms of antioxidant action, vitamin E, C, A and carotenoids, phenolic derivatives, thiols and glutathione, synergistic actions, food supplements for antioxidant action, compositions. Food supplements with herbal ingredients. Dietary products for special diets: infant and early childhood. Nutritional issues during dietary evolution: lactation, pregnancy, third age formulation of dietary products and food supplements. Overweight and obesity: an outline of diet therapy, dietary products and food supplements for overweight subjects. Food fitted for an intensive muscular effort: nutrient requirements for sportsmen, dietary products and food supplements aimed at compensating for energy losses or saline/water losses, products containing amino acids and proteins or creatine-based products with “ergogenic” action (ginseng , guaranà, etc.). Dietary products for subjects with metabolic disorders: food allergies (especially to cow milk), gluten (gluten-free products), amino acids metabolism disorders (phenylalanine, tyrosine), diabetes (dietary products, artificial sweeteners), galactosaemia, cholesterolemia and triglyceridemia. Enteral and parenteral nutrition: hyper-metabolic status, changes in the nutritional needs of critical patients, nutrition therapy.