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Nutrition and Health: Micronutrients and Malnutrition

Learn from the top professors of Wageningen University & Research about malnutrition and micronutrients and how they impact your health. This online course is offered as a MOOC, and is part of the Professional Certificate Pogramme: Nutrition and Health.

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Starts Aug 3
Ends Dec 28
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Starts Nov 2
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Estimated 7 weeks
6–8 hours per week
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Nutrition and Health: Micronutrients and Malnutrition

About this course

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There is an overload of information about nutrition and health, but what is the truth and what can you do to improve the health of your patients? Learn more about nutrition and how our diet profoundly impacts our current and future health. This course addresses the relationship between nutrition and human health, with a focus on health problems related to malnutrition.

In this course, Professor Sander Kersten from Wageningen University & Research will explain about the micronutrient (vitamins, minerals, and trace elements) content of foods. You will learn about their role in the body and their impact on our health. Moreover, this course will discuss how suboptimal nutrition may affect human health, with particular attention to malnutrition and global hunger. You will learn about strategies to improve and combat these problems of malnutrition. Finally, the course will make you familiar with nutritional research and research methodologies.

For whom?

This MOOC is especially useful for health care professionals and people working in the food industry with a non-nutrition background. You will develop a critical mind set by learning to better weigh and interpret information about food, nutrition and health. to improve overall health

This course, is part of the Food, Nutrition and Health Professional Certificate Program of Wageningen University & Research. Did you already complete Nutrition and Health: Macronutrients and Overnutrition? That is the first course in the Food, Nutrition and Health Professional Certificate Program. To explore other learning opportunities about nutrition, have a look at the courses

At a glance

What you'll learn

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  • Introduction to the field of food and nutrition
  • Composition of foods
  • Basic chemistry of vitamins and minerals
  • The role of vitamins and minerals in the body
  • The Impact of malnutrition on global disease burden
  • Nutritional strategies to improve nutritional status and combat malnutrition
  • How to better weigh and interpret the information about nutrition and health

Syllabus

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Module 1: Basic Principles of micronutrients
Start the course by learning about the general principles that apply to vitamins
and minerals.

Module 2: Water, minerals, trace elements
In this module you will look at the health effects of water, and will cover the various
dietary minerals.

Module 3: Fat soluble vitamins and health
Learn about the fat soluble vitamins: vitamin A, vitamin D and vitamin E.

Module 4: Water soluble vitamins and health
For this module, you'll shift your focus to a few of the water soluble vitamins: vitamin C, folate and vitamin B12.

Module 5: The global burden of micronutrient malnutrition
Discuss the prevalence and trends of micronutrient deficiencies
and their geographical distribution. We will also talk about the double burden of
malnutrition.

Module 6: Global solutions to micronutrient deficiencies
This module will outline the available strategies to alleviate micronutrient
malnutrition.

Module 7: Insight in the future of Nutritional Science (verified learners only)
In this module you will get to see some of the exciting research that is currently being
done in the field of Nutritional Science.

Learner testimonials

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"I took this course and it was just awesome, the instructors were very precise in teaching they made it very easy to follow and they stay on course when explaining specifics. Am so glad I took the course!"

''Interesting, educational, I loved this experience and can't wait to finish and take a certificate so that I will register in course 2.''

''The course is detailed and comprehensive. It does include both a high level overview as it goes deeper into detail of some mechanisms.''

About the instructors

Frequently Asked Questions

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Do you have questions about the MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and/or related online programmes of Wageningen University & Research? To help you find answers to your questions, we created a list with frequently asked questions about enrolling, participating in- and finishing a MOOC.

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