HHNS-6700 Nutrition, Exercise and Metabolism I Fall 2009
Instructor: Dr. David J.
Dyck, Rm 345, ANNU Bldg; 519-824-4120 x 56578
ddyck@uoguelph.ca
Meeting Time: Wednesday, 8:30 am to 11:30 pm, ANNU 306
Major Course Themes of Concepts:
The course focuses on the interactions of the metabolic systems that are stressed during exercise with the goal being to understand the regulation of these metabolic processes in the human. The balance of nutrients in any organism is the result of the energy supply and energy output. The quality and the quantity of both aspects can profoundly influence the organism, resulting in alterations in its composition and in the capacity of its tissues to function effectively. Ultimately this is reflected in the health of the organism. The dominant tissue (by mass) in the human body is skeletal muscle and it can vary its metabolic capacity over a wide range. This alone makes it an interesting metabolic system to study. In addition, whether the stress is acute or chronic activity (or lack of activity), a complete understanding requires an appreciation of every tissue of the body as well as detailed knowledge of the short- and long-term nutritional status of the individual. Thus to understand this area one needs to integrate the disciplines of nutritional science and human physiology.
Course
Objectives: The objective of the course is to provide students with an integrative
understanding of the interface between exercise, nutrition and metabolism.
Information from the molecular level to the whole animal will be presented with
common focus being to understand the interaction of nutrition and exercise in
the human. Emphasis will be placed on the development and testing of
experimental hypotheses in these areas of research. This course will address the University's
learning objectives for graduate courses by not only addressing the role of
metabolism in nutrition and exercise in considerable depth, but also by
integrating the disciplines of nutrition and physiology. Furthermore the course
requires detailed appreciation of the integration between the body's key
metabolic tissues, predominantly active and resting skeletal muscle, the blood,
the liver, the gut and adipose tissue.
Class
Format: The
class format will primarily consist of group discussions examining the ~ 4-5
articles that have been assigned for that week’s topic – this is not a lecture driven course! The class will begin with a brief introduction to
the topic and introduction of relevant concepts by the instructor as necessary,
followed by a discussion of the papers.
Copies of the readings will be provided to the students by the
instructor by Friday at the latest in preparation for the following week; PDFs of each article will be emailed to the
students.
It will be the responsibility of the students to
lead the discussions of most or all of the papers each week. One student will
lead the discussion on each paper.
However, students are expected to read all of the papers to be presented that week as well as
any background reading they feel is necessary. Please note that there is considerable variability in the background of
students in this class … it is expected that students will take the
responsibility to do any necessary additional and background reading on their
own as they feel appropriate. All students are expected to participate in
the discussions and ask questions. The discussions are meant to be informal and
do not require formal presentations. Thus, overheads, etc., may be helpful in
some cases, but definitely not required.
Please do not count on the availability of a power-point projector.
This next point should be reinforced: In the discussions we will examine points
regarding the rationale, purpose and hypotheses of the study, the methods employed,
the obtained results and the interpretation of the findings. The focus of the
discussion is meant to be conceptual,
and NOT so much technical. Thus, you are not expected be become experts in all
the technologies and methodologies used, or to spend a lot of time discussing
them. Certainly, they are important and cannot be dismissed, but the emphasis
is to understand WHY the study was done, were the design and measurements
APPROPRIATE and what were the LIMITATIONS, how do you INTERPRET the findings, and
what would you consider for FUTURE experiments (or could you improve on the
study)?
The final 2-3 weeks of the course will be used for student seminar presentations. Depending on the class size, these will be about 20 minutes in duration, and powerpoint presentations would be expected. The topic is up to the student, and can be anything related to nutrition, exercise and metabolism … at least 2 of these themes should be apparent in your chosen topic. Please get topic approval from the instructor as soon as possible i.e. before the end of September. Students in the class will also be given an opportunity to ask questions, and assist in the evaluation of the seminars. Students will also be required to write a review-style paper on the topic chosen for their seminar. This will be due at the end of the course.
Student Evaluation
Take-home Midterm Exam (25%): The exam will
be available immediately following class on October 21, 2009. You have until Monday 4 pm to return a
hard copy to the instructor. Please do not submit your exam
electronically. The exam will have
~4-5 questions covering the topics up to that week. You will be required to answer ONLY 2
questions, but only 1 question from a given section (week) can be answered. See below for the nature of the questions.
Take-home Final Exam (25%): The final
exam will also be take-home (same format as the midterm) and returned in 72 hr.
Pick up is after the final class or during the following week (this can be
arranged on an individual basis late in the semester with the instructor) –
timing is more flexible for the final due to the involvement of TAs with
marking undergraduate exams. The exam will also require you to answer two
questions; the majority of the material would be from the second half, although
there may be something from earlier in the course as well – but the choice of
the 2 is still yours.
Seminar Presentation (20%) see above
Paper on Seminar Topic (30%) - Expected length would be about 10 to 15, double spaced pages, not including diagrams or references. Please use Am J Physiol style of citation/referencing. Due approximately the final week of the course - to be determined in agreement with the class.
Instructions from Last Year’s Midterm...
Answer any two (2) of the following questions. The idea is to briefly write up an experiment, in “manuscript style”, including an introduction and purpose, brief methods, results section (you get to make up your own results to suit your answer), and discussion. Please feel free to use point form for all parts of your answer. Also, feel free to use any experimental techniques you wish. It is only necessary to briefly describe the techniques you will use; i.e. do not give elaborate technical detail. Your results should be in graphical or table format; usually the most critical results are shown graphically. Your discussion should not only put the significance of your findings in context, but also any potential short-comings/limitations of your design. As a rough guide, your experimental write-up should be ~3-4 pages in length (point form), not including any graphs. The graphs may be either computer generated or hand-drawn (neatly!), and should depict the expected changes in your measurements, with some indication of units and numerical values (just “ball-park”; I’m not as concerned about this part). The text of your answer should be typed, or done by word processor (please, no hand written answers). Don’t worry about making the perfect experiment with an unreasonable number of measurements … make a simple, but solid experimental design, that’s hypothesis driven, and make the appropriate measurements to answer the questions you have posed. Also, do not give an incredible amount of detail regarding methodologies or techniques! Just indicate what/how measurements will be made and why. I’m looking for a) the background and logic leading to the experiment, b) a good design with appropriate methods, c) reasonable results, and d) a good discussion tying everything together. Remember … this is not a research assignment !
General Topics to be Covered In Class:
Basic
Metabolic Responses to Exercise, and the Impact of Nutrition and Training
Practical Aspects of Fat-Carbohydrate Interaction
Obesity and Metabolism
Protein Requirements for Athletes
Ergogenic/Weight Loss Supplements
Suggested Texts for Background Reading … because not everyone has an exercise physiology background !!!
Newsholme,
E.A., and C. Start. Regulation in Metabolism. Wiley, Toronto, 1973.
Newsholme,
E.A., and A.R. Leech. Biochemistry for the Medical Sciences. Wiley, Toronto,
1983.
Peachey,
L.D. (ed.) Skeletal Muscle. In: Handbook of Physiology, American Physiological
Society, Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, MD, 1984.
Lehninger,
A.L., D.L. Nelson, and M.M. Cox. Principles of Biochemistry. 2nd Edition, Worth
Publishing, New York, 1993.
Hargreaves,
M. Exercise Metabolism. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL, 1995.
Rowell,
L.B., and J.T. Shepherd (eds) Handbook of Physiology, American Physiological
Society, Section 12: Exercise: Regulation and Integration of Multiple Systems.
Oxford University Press, New York, 1996.
Sample of Journals with Articles Relevant to Nutrition and Substrate Metabolism
Acta Endocrinol. Am.
J. Clin. Nutr.
Am. J. Physiol.
Acta
Physiol. Scand.
Biochim. Biophys. Acta
Appl. Physiol. Nutr. And Metab (formerly, Can. J.
Appl. Physiol.)
Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. Diabetes
Eur. J. Appl. Physiol. FASEB J.
J. Appl. Physiol. J.
Clin. Invest.
J. Physiol. Med.
Sci. Sports Exerc.
Diabetes
WEEK 2 - BASICS
WEEK 3
WEEK 4 - Fat Metabolism
WEEK 5 - Obesity
WEEK 6