Nutrition and health is a matter of concern to many people. Most often, we ask what kind of food is healthy or what we should avoid. But the major problem is not what we eat, the major problem is how much we eat.

Over the past decades world hunger has been joined by a second nutrition problem: chronic over nutrition and lack of exercise in industrialized and developing countries. The ensuing overweight and obesity pose a severe health problem. Picking the most relevant examples, this short course will analyze the biochemical basis of the development of diseases associated with the so called metabolic syndrome. Among others, the steps towards the development of type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis will be discussed.

This course is divided into 4 chapters. In each chapter one particular nutrition-related disease will be discussed on three levels.