Nutrition and blood tests

Following my decision to take courses that may lead to an M.Sc. in Clinical Nutrition, I have signed up and paid for the course Fundamentals of Human Nutrition and Metabolism. The description of this course says that I will

• learn to apply the scientific principles of nutrition to have a real, positive impact on public health
• focus on the basic biochemistry and physiology relevant to human nutrition, to understand how the body works and how it responds to the food we eat
• study metabolism
• gain detailed knowledge of the digestion, absorption and metabolism of carbohydrates, protein, fat, alcohol, vitamins and minerals, as well as energy balance and metabolism.

For me, it will be a refresher course in material that I learned 45 years ago, but I doubt that much has changed with regard to the body. The course also awards credits that go towards the M.Sc. so it's not as if I'm getting my feet wet without reward. As I wrote in the earlier post, one must complete the M.Sc. course in six years which is possible to do if one takes one course per term, two terms per year. But one can take two 'short courses' before switching to the M.Sc. path, although it's not clear to me now whether the time spent on those two courses are part of the six years or not (I'm hoping that not). The course will start in another month, but registration has to be completed by the end of August.

I did another series of blood tests yesterday, but the results were not encouraging. Apart from a welcome decrease in the level of free triglycerides, the glucose and potassium levels remain the same whereas the creatinine level has climbed dangerously. The reduction in free triglycerides may indicate a reduction in insulin resistance; also, as high triglyceride levels in the blood can promote development of cardiovascular disease, reduced levels should reduce the possibility of cardiovascular disease.

I have a followup appointment with the nutrionist next Sunday, after which I'll probably see my GP to discuss what is next on the agenda.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
276	14/08/2010	Bad boy	DCI Banks, Peter Robinson
391	14/08/2011	Optimisations	Programming, Delphi