Human Nutrition, Food Safety and the Nervous System Explained
Food Intake and Nutrition
Food intake: An involuntary act consisting of ingesting food, either liquid or solid, raw or cooked.
Nutrition: A set of processes independent of the will through which the body takes in food, digests it, absorbs the nutrients it contains, and transforms them through metabolism.
Balanced diet: A diet that includes carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins and at least 2 liters of water per day.
Genetically Modified Foods
GM foods: Foods derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Genetic engineering techniques, which are part of biotechnology, consist of introducing into an organism specific genes from another organism by appropriate means.
Additives and Food Production
Additives: Artificial or natural substances used by the food industry for various purposes: coloring foods, favoring preservation, enhancing smell or taste, preventing rancidity, improving texture, maintaining humidity, etc.
Food production control: Insecticides, acaricides, fungicides and herbicides are used to control pests and diseases in crops.
Organic food: Food of high nutritional quality that does not require the use of toxic substances, GMOs or abusive farming methods.
Food Preservation
Food preservation:
- Cold: ultra-freezing and refrigeration
- Heat: sterilization and pasteurization
- Radiation: X-rays, alpha rays, gamma rays, etc.
Relation Functions
Relation functions: The joint action resulting from the coordination of several systems, ensuring the survival of the individual in changing, often hostile environments. They are in charge of capturing, through sensory receptors, stimuli arriving from inside the body and from the external environment, and elaborating appropriate responses for survival.
Coordination Systems
Coordination systems: The nervous system and the hormonal or endocrine system constitute the two coordination systems that work together to control the body's functions. Although they are closely related, the nervous system and the hormonal system work together as a single system: the neuroendocrine system.
The Nervous System
Nervous system: A gigantic and very complex network of neurons. Its basic component is nervous tissue, and its function is to interpret, store and give a response to information received from the outside world and from the inside of our body.
Synapses: The points of communication between neurons. They are specialized parts of neurons that connect through the synaptic cleft.
Nerves: Constituted by long extensions of neurons, called nerve axons or fibers, which can be grouped into bundles of nerve axons or fascicles. They are true bundles of neuronal axons wrapped in several layers of connective tissue, acting as paths or roads through which information passes throughout the body.
Central Nervous System (CNS)
Central nervous system: The part of the nervous system located in the center of the body. It is formed by the brain and spinal cord, where structures responsible for regulation and control processes are found.
Spinal cord: The part of the central nervous system located inside the vertebral column. The brain and the spinal cord communicate through a channel of cerebrospinal fluid along their entire length. Its functions can be summarized in two: conducting impulses to and from the brain, and serving as the center of reflex activity. It is formed by gray and white matter.
Brain: The central organ of the CNS, protected by the skull. It controls and coordinates the activity of the rest of the body's systems. The brain is divided into parts: the brainstem (medulla oblongata, pons, midbrain), cerebellum, thalamus, hypothalamus, cerebrum, the limbic system and the cerebral cortex.
The cerebrum: The largest part of the brain. It is divided into two cerebral hemispheres, left and right. They contain two structures closely related to each other: the neocortex and the limbic system.
Limbic system: A group of cerebral structures forming a pair (one on each side), whose function is related, among other things, to attention, memory, emotion, learning and feelings.
Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)
The autonomic nervous system includes the parasympathetic part, which acts to slow down bodily functions, and the sympathetic part, which acts to speed them up, with an intermediate part.
Intelligence and the Endocrine System
Intelligence: The ability to solve everyday problems and to generate solutions, to develop new products and valuable services. Intelligence depends on one's own culture and other cultural areas.
Hormonal or endocrine system: Controls and regulates many activities of the body. It is formed by a set of glands that produce and secrete hormones into the blood, chemical messengers that act on distant or intracellular targets.