Our Daily Bread, Our Daily Calories

Adam, Veronika

Obtaining food of sufficient quantity and quality has always been the greatest challenge of Humankind. Nowadays in the highly developed societies one of the major problems is the opposite: growing number of people is suffering from overeating that causes diseases and early death. While sophisticated mechanisms have developed in the human body to compensate for the lack of food intake in starvation for remarkably long periods, there is no effective mechanism to prevent the harmful consequences of overeating and obesity. Metabolism is the sum of biological processes through which nutrients entering or stored in the organism are broken down, produce energy or form new molecules. A hormone called insulin is the most important regulator of metabolic processes necessary for the maintenance of optimal glucose level.
Permanently increased food intake leads to obesity, which, above a certain level, considerably increases the likelihood of certain illnesses, of which diabetes type 2 is the most important.
Obesity is one of the greatest problems of modern civilisation. Fighting obesity is possible on two fronts: decreasing food intake or increasing the mobilisation of fats stored in the body. The decrease of food intake through diet is successful in the long term only if it is combined with regular exercise.

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