Nutrition, Coeliac Disease, and life at the moment

Hello again my precious readers! Ever since second year of uni started, I've been telling myself to study more and study hard. Haven't quite convinced myself about that yet so I am hopelessly behind with my classes, as always. During the lectures, practicals or workshops that I have, there is always someone asking questions that I would never be able to ask since I don't even have any idea of what is happening. There's those people who are so on top of things, and then there's me.

I am majoring in Nutrition, and my classes are all based on biochem, biomed, nutrition values in foods, anatomy, diseases, public health and health in general. It's not difficult, but the content is endless, so a good memory is needed to remember everything, but then there's me.

For one of my courses, as assignment, we have to do either an individual written piece or a group video/animation on a selected health condition/disease. Of course, a video would typically be chosen. Even though it is much more work, I think people can learn more from videos than writing a boring page of words, and reading it over and over again for double-triple-poly-checking.

In a group of three, we have chosen Coeliac, or celiac (see-li-ack) disease as our topic for our animation-video. The reason we chose this topic was because two of us learnt a little bit about it in a nutrition course that we do, and it sounded like a good topic to learn more about.

To briefly describe this disease- and make myself sound smart- it is basically the body's immune system reacting abnormally to gluten (typically found in wheat), causing damage to the villi (small finger-like projections) in the lining of the small intestine. These, if healthy and normal, expand in surface area to assist the small intestine in absorption of nutrients in foods. It is important for the small intestine to absorb as much nutrients as possible for the body's general health, therefore, these villi are much needed. For coeliac disease, the villi (small finger-like projections in the lining of the small intestine) are inflamed and flattened, which reduces the surface area for maximum absorption of nutrients.

So overall, I am now having to do a huge load of research on this disease, including how it affects the body's homeostasis. Sounds fun! >>

Other than that, uni life is pretty straightforward. Like, there's nothing new really. Haven't really had any chances to make new friends, however I have noticed many familiar faces around campus.