Two theories of nutrition: ideal food and ideal nutrition

The concept of ideal food and ideal nutrition in general is based on strict scientific postulates. It is scientifically developed on the basis of the lassic theory of nutrition, which I was formed under the influence of the work of the greatest scientists, especially the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Again, we note that this theory is characterized by a balanced approach, and its main position is to imagine that nutrition is primarily a process of maintaining and balancing the molecular composition of the body, that is, the process of recovering those costs that occur in the body. As a result of absorption and digestion of various nutrients that need to be well balanced, the necessary components are extracted from them and the ballast is discarded. In this case, there is a good balance between the spectrum of incoming and lost substances. With the help of special mechanisms such an equilibrium is maintained very accurately. In essence, we are talking about the fact that due to special sensitive systems, losses of the corresponding substances are captured by the body, which leads to transformation and food activity, specialized selection of different types of food, etc. In other words, as stated above, the theory of balanced nutrition is based on the application of basic laws of conservation of matter and energy to biological systems.

At the end of the XIX century, the basic concept of improving nutrition was outlined. So, already at this time there was an idea of discarding ballast substances and forming the most enriched food, consisting mainly or exclusively of nutrients. At the beginning of the 20th century, many prominent scientists believed that it was possible to create an ideal food that, in the form of highly purified nutrients, would be introduced into the gastrointestinal tract.

In the final form, the theory of balanced nutrition, based on balanced approaches to the assessment of food and diet, was formulated at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We noted that the theory of balanced nutrition was one of the first, if not the first, molecular theory in biology and medicine and in many ways served as the development of new ideas and forecasts in the field of nutrition. Moreover, on the basis of the theory of balanced nutrition, the most important practical and theoretical results were obtained, in particular, essential amino acids, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, etc., necessary for the life of the organism, etc. Finally, the theory of balanced nutrition is the scientific basis for the transition from agrotechnics to industrial engineering. The advantages of the latter, as mentioned above, were noted by A.N. Nesmeyanov. The largest achievements of the modern food industry and modern dietology - a consequence of the amazingly beautiful theory of balanced nutrition.

At present it is clear that, despite serious successes, many of the main practical consequences and recommendations of the theory of balanced nutrition led us to a very dangerous (though not completely wrong) direction. They stimulated the development of numerous diseases, which until now are almost the main ones in a civilized human society. This circumstance can be explained by the fact that the idea of improved, enriched food is only perfect at first glance. Indeed, it is possible to design an ideal food, it is possible to store not a huge amount of food products, but by discarding the ballast, only the part necessary for food can be transported from one part of the world to another not all products but only their components representing the food value, etc. However, in fact, it turned out that refined foods and fortified foods are defective in many ways and cause many serious diseases. Perhaps these products stimulated the development of not yet discovered or unexplained diseases like beriberi and a number of others. (Beriberi disease is common in countries where rice is the staple food.) A little digestible rice shell is removed as a ballast, but it contains one of the necessary vitamins - vitamin B ₁, the absence of which leads to muscle atrophy, cardiovascular disorders, etc. .)

No less important conclusion from the theory of balanced nutrition, consisting in the possibility of parenteral nutrition directly through the blood, also proved to be erroneous. Parenteral nutrition, although in many cases it is necessary, at the same time, probably, will never be able to replace human nutrition in the norm.

The idea of an ideal food was most fully expressed in elemental nutrition. This idea, which seemed extremely important, boiled down to the fact that the food we eat should be replaced by substances coming from the gastrointestinal tract into the blood and directly involved in the metabolism. Such substances include the final products of digestion of food - glucose, amino acids, fatty acids, etc. In other words, food should consist of a set of amino acids that replace proteins, a set of monosaccharides, replacing oligo- and polysaccharides, a set of fatty acids, etc. In elemental diets should also include various salts, trace elements, vitamins. Preliminary experiments on animals and observations on humans demonstrated the wide possibilities of the elemental diet. Those oral analyzes showed that in this case it is possible to control the flow of nutrients through any constituent component, which is excluded when feeding with natural products. Thus, elemental nutrition apparently gave a number of valuable advantages.

It should be noted that the concept of nutrition in space was developed on the basis of the theory of balanced nutrition. Despite significant differences in the views of different authors, in the 1970s it was assumed that astronauts could use elemental diets containing an optimal set of necessary elements and a minimum of ballast substances for long flights.

At the same time, elemental diets are not contraindicated. They simply can not replace a normal diet for a long time. But with some diseases and in certain situations (stress, sports competitions, special working conditions, climatic conditions, etc.), part of the usual food or all of its replacement with elements is highly advisable. Currently, such a replacement is being successfully implemented, and one can even recommend a temporary transition to elemental diets. At the same time, it became quite obvious that in the course of evolution, man adapted not to elemental (monomeric), but to polymer diets, that is, to the food that he consumed for many thousands of years.

We came to a very important aspect of the nutrition problem, which, in fact, was one of the reasons for the formation of a new theory of nutrition. Let me remind you once again: we are talking about the fact that the exceptionally fruitful classical theory of balanced nutrition was not sufficiently evolutionary. More precisely, it was basically not evolutionary and sufficiently biological. This is characteristic of the emerging theory of adequate nutrition.

As follows from the name of the theory, its meaning is, first, that the food should not just be balanced, but also fed in the form that corresponds to the evolutionary features of the species and population. This circumstance is extremely important, and it can not be underestimated. Secondly, some fundamental concepts of human nutrition should be considered and even revised on the basis of new achievements in the field of physiology, biochemistry, medicine and biology in general. A number of new discoveries in biology and medicine have demonstrated that nutrition is not just a process of supplying the body with food substances, as we have represented it quite recently. Exhausting this complex problem is extremely difficult. Therefore, we will try once again to briefly summarize only some of its most important aspects.

First of all, one should once again say about the important role of the microflora of the gastrointestinal tract in the vital activity of the organism. The intestine possesses a unique set of closely interacting bacteria, which realize a mass of important transformations involving both endogenous and exogenous substances. As a result of transformation changes in these substances, as well as ballast food fibers, additional nutrients appear. This fact alone testifies to the impossibility of creating ideal food and perfect nutrition.

It is equally important that the population of bacteria of the gastrointestinal tract realizes a special kind of homeostasis - trophostasis, that is, the maintenance of a constant trophic flow from the gastrointestinal tract into the internal environment of the organism. In the absence of bacterial flora, trophic resistance is severely impaired. It is also essential that in order to maintain normal endoecology, contacts with a sufficiently large group of people are required that have their own specific endoecology. Normal endoecology can be disrupted as a result of various effects, which causes an increase in the flow of bacterial metabolites and provokes a number of serious diseases.

Thus, it is now quite obvious that we are constantly getting to some extent a defective diet and our bacterial flora helps us to withstand the unfavorable conditions that are created. At the same time, the bacterial flora produces a certain amount of toxic substances. Therefore, the creation of an ideal food and ideal food is already unrealistic in the light of these circumstances. Similarly, the idea of the possibility of the existence of a person with a reduced gastrointestinal tract is unrealistic.

Indeed, it should be borne in mind the fact that we have repeatedly mentioned the surprising fact: the gastrointestinal tract is not only an organ providing the supply of necessary substances to the body. This is the endocrine organ, which, as it turned out in the last decade, is more powerful than all other endocrine glands, taken together. This discovery refers to one of the so-called silent revolutions in biology and medicine. The endocrine system of the gastrointestinal tract is larger in volume than the pituitary, thyroid, adrenal glands, sex glands and other endocrine structures, and produces more different hormones than these endocrine organs.

Therefore, nutrition is the process of not only food, but also regulatory substances produced by the endocrine apparatus of the gastrointestinal tract, that is, chemical signals that in some way control our body. It is not surprising, therefore, that in young organisms some set of food components causes a greater effect than in the older ones. In the latter case, even their more optimal set may not cause an ascetic effect. This is explained by the fact that the endocrine system of the gastrointestinal tract realizes not only digestive peptic and trophic effects, participating in the regulation of food assimilation and a number of other vital functions.

Finally, depending on the evolutionary features of nutrition, food should contain a larger and smaller number of ballast structures that do not directly participate in the metabolism of the body. It turned out that the XIX century was a century of dramatic errors, when, under the influence of the theory of balanced nutrition, the industry sought to obtain, for example, highly purified flour, grain used for the production of cereals, and other refined products. However, it turned out that dietary fiber significantly affects the activity of the gastrointestinal tract, electrolyte metabolism and a number of other functions of primary importance. It was also found that in the absence of ballast substances, the bacterial flora of the gastrointestinal tract produces significantly more toxic substances and less effectively performs protective and other functions. Moreover, during the evolution of the ballast substances themselves joined in a number of body functions, including in the exchange of steroids. So, human consumption of whole grain bread leads to a decrease in cholesterol in the blood, which is comparable to the result of the introduction of cholesterol lowering drugs. The explanation for this phenomenon is that the processes of the exchange of cholesterol, bile acids and steroid hormones are interrelated.

Thus, dietary fiber should be used both for the normalization of endoecology, and for direct effects on the exchange of cholesterol, salts, water metabolism, etc. It should be noted that this is now used quite often.

In the West, industrial production of dietary fiber is widely developed. In our country, also, for example, pure fruit juices were no longer produced, and instead, preparations were made for various products from fruit and vegetables containing dietary fiber. Indeed, one of the most valuable components in fruits and vegetables is the dietary fiber. The same can be said for many other products.

Conclusions

The basic idea of ideal food and ideal nutrition is to provide the best possible manifestation of all the possibilities of the body and its optimal functioning. However, apparently, the achievement of this goal is unrealistic. In fact, some types of food are favorable for large physical exertion, in the same cases when there are significant psychological stress, another diet is needed. Moreover, changes in the emotional background also require appropriate changes in the diet. The types of food in the hot and cold climate vary considerably, and the differences in nutrition between the northern and southern peoples can not be reduced only to economic factors. Finally, to increase the life expectancy should use low-calorie rations. At the same time, intensive work requires a sufficiently high level of nutrition. Thus, there are a number of patterns of adequate food and nutrition for different conditions. But none of them is perfect.

Above this, nutrition can not at present be interpreted as simply supplying the body with a certain set of chemical elements. This is a complex process in which the gastrointestinal tract interacts with other organs and systems of the body and serves as a source of a huge number of nerve and hormonal signals.

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