Foods: definition, nutritional meaning and caloric power, bioavailability of nutrients
- Food as nutrients carrier, non nutrients (phytochemicals) and anti-nutrients; fortified foods, enriched and supplemented foods. Functional foods: prebiotic, probiotic and symbiotic food. Nutraceutical and supplement foods.
- Cellular bioenergetics. Assessment of energy requirement: basal metabolism, thermogenesis induced by food, physical and environmental.
- Structure and chemical properties of the energy nutrients: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins.
- Non-energy nutrients: vitamins, minerals and water.

- Proteins: biological and nutritional value of animal and vegetable proteins; nitrogen balance, essential and non-essential amino acids, glycogenic and ketogenic amino acids, digestion and absorption.

- Lipids: digestion and absorption (lipase and bile salts), essential fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids; cholesterol, lipoproteins. Nutritional significance of lipids. The oxidative damage of lipids and protective factors.

- Carbohydrates: Digestion, transport and absorption (available and unavailable carbohydrates) Glucose homeostasis. Physiological effects of diet fiber (soluble and non soluble).

- Vitamins: hydrosoluble and liposoluble vitamins (food sources, requirements, metabolic role, deficiencies and excesses). Changes during storage and food processing.

- Minerals: macro (Ca, Mg, Na, K, Phosphate, CI), trace elements (Fe, Cu, Zn, I, Cr, Mn, Se, Mo), essentiality, bioavailability, toxicity.

- Food intake, energy and nutrients requirements in relation to age, sex, climate, physiological state, employment (individual and community needs) according to the LARN for the Italian population. EAR, RDA, AI, UL significance.

Alimentazione e Nutrizione Umana a cura di Lorenzo M Donini, Anna Maria Giusti, Alessandro Pinto, Valeria del Balzo. Il Pensiero Scientifico Editor, III Edition revised and updated.

Introduzione alla Biochimica di Lehninger. Zanichelli ed.