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58
Text 2. Nutrition and health
In the 18th Century, many sailors on long journeys died from scurvy: indeed some
battleships lost more men through illness than through enemy action. The caus e of this was
not understood, until it was discovered that adding fresh limes to the ship’s supply of
preserved food s eemed to boos t the s ailor’s resistance to the illness, and fewer died. The
existence of parts of food essential for survival had been discovered. Other so-called
vitamins were discovered through the effect of their absence on people’s health, and
increasingly the role of nutrition’s contribution to health was seen as equally important as
exercise, hygiene, environment, and psychological wellbeing.
The connection between nutrition and health has weakened however. Good health
became the norm in the developed world through increased understanding of communicable
diseases, micro-organisms and how to fight them with antibiotics, and other health
developments. A hidden epidemic gradually emerged in the post World War 2 years, where
non-communicable endemic illnesses began to flourish, such as heart disease, cancer,
diabetes and obesity.
These illnesses are increasingly recognised now as being s ometimes caus ed by lifestyle
issues, including poor nutrition and low levels of exercise. Despite this knowledge, the peak
of the epidemic is s till with us , and obesity related diseas es are prevalent in the developed
world.
Many nutritionists ascribe this to excess of refined carbohydrates, decreasing levels of
exercise, fewer vegetables and fruit and the wrong type of fats in our diet. Others feel that
governments and the food indus try has not yet recognised or acted upon this insight. Fast
food restaurants are spreading around the world, and Westernisation has unfortunately
brought the "dis eases of civilis ation" with it. A reaction to this has been the development of
a s low food trend. This has now got its own Univers ity, at the Univers ity of Pollenzo in
Piedmont Italy whose goal is to promote awareness of good food and health through
nutrition.
Nutrition research has identified many components of good nutrition, so that in general
a wide variety of unprocessed food is recommended as a natural preventive measure, to
maintain good health rather than individual foods as remedies for perceived deficiencies.
Nutrition can affect health in many ways. Ill-health can be brought about by an
imbalance of nutrients, producing either an excess or deficiency which in turn affects body
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