Research and Advanced Education
About the Advanced Training Course in Metabolic Diseases and Disturbances in Dietary Behaviour
My name is Isabel Pinheiro, I am a hospital assistant in Internal Medicine and I have a Masters Degree in Clinical Nutrition in which I defended a thesis on the expression of ghrelin and other cytokines and oncological cachexia. At the moment I am working in the Medicine 2 Service at Santa Maria Hospital, where I am daily confronted with a significant number of patients with pathologies resulting from obesity, high blood pressure, dyslipidemias and type 2 diabetes, with countless complications in different target organs; lives that could have had more years and a better quality if they had had better advice and had gone in for more prevention.
We are living in a society of abundance, with so many temptations around us, in a rhythm that is far too fast. We work and we compete too much and we have to do better at each passing day. Time is short for being with the family, and at times it is difficult to get time for such simple things as planning meals and doing physical exercise. We put looking after ourselves off until tomorrow. We take quick solutions, pre-cooked meals, about which we don’t know the origin, and we try not to think about the toxins they contain and the ethics of their production. What have we done with our Mediterranean diet?
There is a new pattern of causes of morbility and mortality in the population of the developed countries. There is talk of an epidemic of obesity and of related chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, cerebral vascular accidents and certain forms of cancer. Many biological, psychological, behavioural, environmental, social and cultural determining factors are contributing towards the impact of metabolic diseases on life expectancy and quality. The role of nutritional prevention is fundamental and it necessary to mobilise resources in order to guarantee the best possible results in the promoting of health and the management of illness. It is urgent to find solutions on several different levels.
On the level of primary prevention we need socio-economic and legislative policies to limit, for example, the amount of salt and sugar in foodstuffs, to regulate advertising, to stimulate the diffusion of information and education as to a healthy diet from school age and to promote health literacy.
On the level of secondary and tertiary prevention, there must be motivation towards reencountering balance and researching into finding new therapies.
This advanced training course includes subjects such as the regulation of dietary ingestion and body weight, sensory systems of the energy state, as a result of lack and excess of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and oligoelements, as well as the effects of oxidative stress in longevity, ageing and degenerative pathology.
It deals with the role of nutrition in the life cycle, in physical activity, in health and in sickness, and in risk groups. It discusses metabolic syndromes, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis and respective therapeutic options and results. All of these subjects are presented transversally throughout several fields of knowledge: epidemiology, public health, genetics, nutrition, psychology, psychiatry, biochemistry and endocrinology.
I decided to apply to the PhD in metabolic diseases and dietary behaviour because, as a doctor, I believe I ought to learn more, to participate in research and thus be more useful in clinical practice and in teaching. I hope to bring my knowledge up to date in a multidisciplinary perspective in order to critically analyse the information available and to improve my research methodologies. Each one of us can make a difference, and there is so much to be done …
I am really enjoying the theoretical-practical classes, which are extremely interesting and well organised, lectured by outstanding experts in the several different fields. I recommend everyone interested in this subject to apply to the next editions of this postgraduate course.
Isabel Pinheiro
Hospital Assistant in Internal Medicine, Medicine 2 A, Santa Maria Hospital
Master in Clinical Nutrition from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon
Bibliography:
WHO 2009. Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health
Carmo, I. (2004). Alimentação saudável, alimentação segura. Publicações D. Quixote, Lisbon.
The 2nd Edition of the Masters/PhD Course in Metabolic Diseases and Dietary Behaviour began in October this year. We are thus starting the second year of this successful course that began in 2008 / 2009.
As should always be the case, we learn from the experience of the previous year, and this year we have reinforced classes in epidemiology and statistics applied to health, and particularly to this area, as well as project classes.
We have maintained the modules of studying causes and determining factors and of general sociology applied to health, because we are convinced, also based on the students’ impressions, that it is necessary to make deep cuts across human knowledge beyond the knowledge localized to specific areas of health. As Abel Salazar stated “those who only know medicine (in this case of health) doesn’t know medicine”.
Seven students are enrolled for the PhD and fifteen for the Masters. The module of Determinants and Consequences of Metabolic Diseases has already been held, under Prof. Constantino Sakellarides from the Portugal National Health School (ENSP) and the module of Human Diet, given by Prof. Daniel Sampaio and Prof. Pedro Moreira of the Faculty of Nutrition and Dietary Sciences of the University of Oporto (FCNAUP). On the 20th of November the module of Epidemiology and Evaluation of Obesity began, under orientation of Professor Isabel do Carmo, with the course in General Sociology Applied to Health being given by Prof. Manuel Vilaverde Cabral – Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lisbon.
Professor Isabel do Carmo
2nd Edition of the DMCA Masters/PhD Course
We are living in a society of abundance, with so many temptations around us, in a rhythm that is far too fast. We work and we compete too much and we have to do better at each passing day. Time is short for being with the family, and at times it is difficult to get time for such simple things as planning meals and doing physical exercise. We put looking after ourselves off until tomorrow. We take quick solutions, pre-cooked meals, about which we don’t know the origin, and we try not to think about the toxins they contain and the ethics of their production. What have we done with our Mediterranean diet?
There is a new pattern of causes of morbility and mortality in the population of the developed countries. There is talk of an epidemic of obesity and of related chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, cerebral vascular accidents and certain forms of cancer. Many biological, psychological, behavioural, environmental, social and cultural determining factors are contributing towards the impact of metabolic diseases on life expectancy and quality. The role of nutritional prevention is fundamental and it necessary to mobilise resources in order to guarantee the best possible results in the promoting of health and the management of illness. It is urgent to find solutions on several different levels.
On the level of primary prevention we need socio-economic and legislative policies to limit, for example, the amount of salt and sugar in foodstuffs, to regulate advertising, to stimulate the diffusion of information and education as to a healthy diet from school age and to promote health literacy.
On the level of secondary and tertiary prevention, there must be motivation towards reencountering balance and researching into finding new therapies.
This advanced training course includes subjects such as the regulation of dietary ingestion and body weight, sensory systems of the energy state, as a result of lack and excess of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and oligoelements, as well as the effects of oxidative stress in longevity, ageing and degenerative pathology.
It deals with the role of nutrition in the life cycle, in physical activity, in health and in sickness, and in risk groups. It discusses metabolic syndromes, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis and respective therapeutic options and results. All of these subjects are presented transversally throughout several fields of knowledge: epidemiology, public health, genetics, nutrition, psychology, psychiatry, biochemistry and endocrinology.
I decided to apply to the PhD in metabolic diseases and dietary behaviour because, as a doctor, I believe I ought to learn more, to participate in research and thus be more useful in clinical practice and in teaching. I hope to bring my knowledge up to date in a multidisciplinary perspective in order to critically analyse the information available and to improve my research methodologies. Each one of us can make a difference, and there is so much to be done …
I am really enjoying the theoretical-practical classes, which are extremely interesting and well organised, lectured by outstanding experts in the several different fields. I recommend everyone interested in this subject to apply to the next editions of this postgraduate course.
Isabel Pinheiro
Hospital Assistant in Internal Medicine, Medicine 2 A, Santa Maria Hospital
Master in Clinical Nutrition from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon
Bibliography:
WHO 2009. Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health
Carmo, I. (2004). Alimentação saudável, alimentação segura. Publicações D. Quixote, Lisbon.
The 2nd Edition of the Masters/PhD Course in Metabolic Diseases and Dietary Behaviour began in October this year. We are thus starting the second year of this successful course that began in 2008 / 2009.
As should always be the case, we learn from the experience of the previous year, and this year we have reinforced classes in epidemiology and statistics applied to health, and particularly to this area, as well as project classes.
We have maintained the modules of studying causes and determining factors and of general sociology applied to health, because we are convinced, also based on the students’ impressions, that it is necessary to make deep cuts across human knowledge beyond the knowledge localized to specific areas of health. As Abel Salazar stated “those who only know medicine (in this case of health) doesn’t know medicine”.
Seven students are enrolled for the PhD and fifteen for the Masters. The module of Determinants and Consequences of Metabolic Diseases has already been held, under Prof. Constantino Sakellarides from the Portugal National Health School (ENSP) and the module of Human Diet, given by Prof. Daniel Sampaio and Prof. Pedro Moreira of the Faculty of Nutrition and Dietary Sciences of the University of Oporto (FCNAUP). On the 20th of November the module of Epidemiology and Evaluation of Obesity began, under orientation of Professor Isabel do Carmo, with the course in General Sociology Applied to Health being given by Prof. Manuel Vilaverde Cabral – Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lisbon.
Professor Isabel do Carmo
2nd Edition of the DMCA Masters/PhD Course