Causes of Human Disease: Nutrition and Environment (FutureLearn)

Offered by University of Leeds,
Causes of Human Disease: Nutrition and Environment (FutureLearn)

Explore how nutrition and environmental factors, including lifestyle, influence your chance of developing human disease. On this course you’ll look at the importance of nutrition in human health and explore what happens to the body when it doesn’t receive the right nutrients.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see FutureLearn's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

You will focus on malnutrition and obesity and how these contribute to the development of diseases, such as diabetes. You’ll learn how food can lead to ill health by carrying pathogens that cause food poisoning. Using research from the University of Leeds, you’ll explore how toxins are linked with diseases such as cancer. You’ll then investigate environmental factors, including air pollution, and its contribution to human diseases.

Syllabus

Week 1: Food and nutrition
Week 2: Environmental exposures

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

  • Explore how poor nutrition and diet contributes to malnutrition and disease.
  • Report on the nutritional and protective qualities of specific diets.
  • Investigate toxins present in food and how they contribute to human disease.
  • Describe how waterborne chemical toxins can have an adverse effect on health.
  • Reflect on how air pollution can contribute to the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Who is the course for?
The course is suitable for anyone with a general interest in the science behind causes of human disease and medicine. No previous knowledge or experience is required. If you are working in nursing, healthcare or social care or just wish to learn more about it, this course is designed to support you as a professional. By completing all aspects of the course you will have achieved 14 hours of CPD time.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Exercise Prescription for the Prevention and Treatment of Disease (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Trinity College Dublin

Exercise Prescription for the Prevention and Treatment of Disease (FutureLearn)

Learn how physical exercise can help patients including those with cardiovascular disease, mental health problems and cancer. In the last few decades physical exercise has become well established as a tool to prevent and treat disease. Perceptions within the healthcare sector of exercise and its prescription as a treatment have changed dramatically in recent years.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Using Infection Control to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of East Anglia

Using Infection Control to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance (FutureLearn)

Find out how effective infection control in health and social care can tackle the global risk of antimicrobial resistance. Get practical guidance on infection control in health and social care settings. This online course will explore the growing problem of antimicrobial-resistant infections in health and social care settings. You’ll find out how infectious diseases are acquired and spread, and how this contributes to the global risk of antimicrobial resistance.

Self Paced
3 Weeks
Environmental Challenges: Scarcity and Conflict in the Natural Environment (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Environmental Challenges: Scarcity and Conflict in the Natural Environment (FutureLearn)

War and conflict can severely disrupt the governance of the environment. What is the impact on both people and the environment? This course explores three aspects of conflict and resource scarcity, and applies these to explore decision making and negotiation skills. Human conflict has both short and long term effects on the natural world.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Environmental Challenges: Human Impact in the Natural Environment (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Environmental Challenges: Human Impact in the Natural Environment (FutureLearn)

Complexity in nature arises from a myriad of simple interactions. How can this lead to an unpredictable dynamism? Complex patterns in ecology are not always causal and predictable. Populations have their own dynamics that can be independent of external environmental conditions. In this course we look at the way that natural systems are organised; although living systems are complex, there are also some fairly constant patterns and relationships.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Understanding Anxiety, Depression and CBT (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Reading

Understanding Anxiety, Depression and CBT (FutureLearn)

Improve your understanding of depression and anxiety and find out more about an effective and evidence-based treatment: CBT. Anxiety and depression are terms discussed widely, in different media and amongst family and friends. But what do those labels actually mean? On this five week course, from the University of Reading, you will explore what it means to have anxiety or depression and how they are identified.

Self Paced
5-12 Weeks
Understanding Insulin (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Southampton

Understanding Insulin (FutureLearn)

Learn more about all things insulin: from how it works, to insulin types, to side effects and guidance on how to prescribe safely. The current spend on diabetes care by the NHS is estimated to be £1.6 million pounds per hour. 80% of this is spent on managing diabetes complications, the risk of which can be significantly reduced through effective blood glucose control using insulin.

Self Paced
4 Weeks
Improving Health Assessments for People with an Intellectual Disability (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Trinity College Dublin,EIT Health

Improving Health Assessments for People with an Intellectual Disability (FutureLearn)

Learn how to improve healthcare for people with intellectual disabilities with this course for healthcare professionals. Detecting poor health and supporting people with an intellectual disability in managing their health can be challenging for healthcare professionals. During this course, you will gain valuable knowledge that you can transfer into your daily practice on how to include people with an intellectual disability in health assessments.

Self Paced
3 Weeks
Digital Health for Cancer Management: Smart Health Technologies in Complex Diseases (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Taipei Medical University

Digital Health for Cancer Management: Smart Health Technologies in Complex Diseases (FutureLearn)

Learn how new digital health technologies are transforming cancer management with this course for healthcare professionals. Recent advances in cancer treatment and management have lead to people with cancer living longer than ever before, now healthcare must begin to consider how to help people with cancer live healthily. On this course you will explore and discuss how new digital health technologies, like wearables, social media and home sensors, are starting to transform the management of cancer.

Self Paced
4 Weeks
Challenges in Antibiotic Resistance: Gram Negative Bacteria (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy - BSAC

Challenges in Antibiotic Resistance: Gram Negative Bacteria (FutureLearn)

This course by BSAC is for healthcare professionals managing infections. You will learn about Gram Negative Bacteria. Identify, diagnose and treat gram negative bacterial infections. Gram negative bacteria (GNB) are a group of bacteria that can cause infection and toxic reaction in patients, yet are difficult to differentiate and treat with antibiotics due to their structure.

Self Paced
3 Weeks
Environmental Challenges: Rights and Values in Ecosystem Services (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Environmental Challenges: Rights and Values in Ecosystem Services (FutureLearn)

Differences in values can create conflict. How can we learn to manage our natural resources with integrity? Humans are very innovative, but we’ve also created many ecological problems. We’ve changed the face of the planet, fished the oceans, and we’re causing climate change through emissions. Designing institutional arrangements that recognise ecosystem services in the values we place upon natural systems will be an important way to help governing the planet, for both present and future generations.

Self Paced
2 Weeks