‘We are what we eat’. The old adage, expression of popular wisdom that has taken new connotations of truth during the years, is even more relevant today. Bad nutrition represents a fertile ground for an aggravation of already existing pathologies, as much as a good nutrition can represent an extra weapon in the treatment of diseases. What is certain is that so-called ‘healthy lifestyles’ go through a balanced nutrition in each of its components. The nutrition expert’s task is exactly this one: with a strong scientific, professional and methodological background in the field of nutrition and health, has competence to assess, coordinate, control, program every useful action to keep and promote human health status. Not only by talking to the patient, but by applying their knowledge to different professional contests: preparation of menu in the healthcare areas, for example, or industrial, school canteens, must be produced by human nutrition experts, who are able to better analyse and regulate nutrient intakes in each single meal.
UniCamillus, International Medical Univeristy of Rome, has accredited to MUR its Master Degree Course in Science of Human Nutrition (LM-61). The aims of this Degree Course, led in the wake of a Univeristy with a medical calling, are those of giving to the professional elements and scientific skills able to combine physiology, base nutrition and applied nutrition and complementary cultural areas aush as hygiene and food security, biochemistry of food, food microbiology, technologies, pharmacology and legal aspects. This course takes advantage of the presence of clinical disciplines that allow an insight, for example, on the correlations between pathologies with a nutritional component or genesis, on the role of food and diets in different physiological conditions, the prevention of chronic-degenerative diseases and the improvement of the well-being and the life quality.
Thanks to these skills, the Expert in Human Nutrition can work in different fields of the public health, as in the planning and management of nutritional evaluation and surveillance programmes; s/he can be employed in food companies, dietary or pharmaceutical, at the design and development of functional foods or the management of labeling and information about nutrition and health claims; in catering companies or catering in hospital or, after passing the State exam and consequently being registered in the Biologists Council, work as a free professional.
Therefore, an Expert with all the competences and knowledge to assist a specialist or doctor’s decisions in every way.