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Nutrition Guide for Physicians
Nutrition 27 (2011) 124–125
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Nutrition journal homepage: www.nutritionjrnl.com
Book review Nutrition Guide for Physicians. Ted Wilson, Ph.D., Norman J. Temple, Ph.D., George A. Bray, M.D., and Marie Boyle Strubble, Ph.D., eds. Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey, 2010. ISBN: 9781-60327-430-2 (hardbound); 978-1-60327-431-9 (electronic). This addition to the Humana Press Nutrition and Health series represents an ambitious attempt to fill a major deficiency in the nutrition education of most physicians. The editors have selected an outstanding group of nutritionally oriented health care professionals who have combined the goals of clarity, depth, consensus, cutting edge, laboratory interest, and practical applicability—all characteristics that are necessary prerequisites to encouraging the penetration of science-based nutrition into medical practice. Each individual chapter focuses on a particular “module” in a way that is both familiar to seasoned physicians and friendly to medical students. A set of “Key Points” sets the theme for each subtopic and serves to “set the table” for the cornucopia of information that follows. Unlike many nutrition textbooks, the authors of these chapters have shied away from plunging deeply into human biochemistry and instead have concentrated on clinical outcomes. The major teaching points of each chapter are reiterated and summarized near the end of each chapter, which finishes with a carefully selected list of “Suggested Further Reading” that complements the list of references that were cited in the chapter. While many of the usual and expected topics are covered, including dietary fats, dietary fiber, the vitamins and minerals, understanding tables of dietary recommendations, interpreting food labels, and food sources of various nutrients, other chapters introduce topics of potentially greater current interest among the medical community. For example, in their chapter, “Sugar and Artificial Sweeteners: Seeking the Sweet Truth,” Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D., and Kiyah J. Duffey, Ph.D., of the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, emphasize the increasing importance of the calories contained in beverages to obesity-promoting unbalanced caloric intakes. Taking a different perspective (“Dietary Recommendations for Non-Alcoholic Beverages”), Ted Wilson, Ph.D., of Winona State University, Winona, MN, suggests that the health benefits of coffee, tea, and milk justify promoting their consumption, while the caloric contents of fruit and vegetable juices and soft drinks argue against their consumption. In their discussion of “Vegetarian and Vegan Diets: Weighing the Claims,” Claire McEnvoy, R. D., and Jayne V. Woodside, Ph.D., of the Centre for Clinical and Population Science, Belfast, Ireland, sort through the potential health benefits as well as dangers of these popular restricted diets. In an effort to blend environmental consciousness with nutritional science, and reflecting the increasing concern over such issues in Europe, the nutritional superiority and greater safety of
organically grown produce is explored in a chapter (“Issues of Food Safety: Are ‘Organic’ Apples Better?”) by Gianna Ferretti, Ph.D., and Davide Neri, Ph.D., of the Universita Politechnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy, and Bruno Borsari, Ph.D., of Winona State University, Winona, MN. The particular nutritional needs that occur during various stages of the life cycle are reviewed in chapters on pregnancy, infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and old age (“middleage,” that transitional period between the vigor of youth and the deceleration of old age, receives scant attention). The chapter on “Pregnancy: Preparation for the Next Generation” by Jennifer J. Francis, M.P.H., of Southern Maine Community College, South Portland, ME, discusses the impact of nutrition on pregnancy outcome from periconception through lactation and provides guidelines for the management of women who experience gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, or multiple pregnancies. The role of human breast milk as a food is evaluated in the chapter on “Infants: Transition from Breast to Bottle to Solids” by Jacki M. Rorabaugh, B.S., of Winona State University, Winona, MN, and James K. Friel, Ph.D., of the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. The interplay between the demands of growth and the development of food allergies and sensitivities are probed in the chapter on “Young Children: Preparing for the Future” by Jennifer J. Francis, M.P.H., of Southern Maine Community College, South Portland, ME. The following chapter on nutrition during adolescence and young adulthood (“Adolescents and Young Adults: Facing the Challenges” by Kathy Roberts, M.S., of the College of Saint Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ) emphasizes the importance of the social challenges during this time in life to the development of the ostensibly nutritionally sensitive eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. The physiology of human aging motivates the chapter on the beneficial potential of healthy nutrition on the elderly (“Healthy Aging: Nutritional Concepts for Older Adults” by Eleanor D. Schlenker, Ph.D., of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). A brief primer on nutritional assessment (“Nutritional Status: An Overview of Methods for Assessment”) by Catherine M. Champagne, Ph.D., and George A. Bray, M.D., of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, provides tools for determining whether those needs are being fulfilled. Consistent with its target audience, much of the second half of the book is devoted to chapters on the physiology, metabolic aspects, and medical nutritional management of disease conditions with which the average physician will be all too familiar: obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension, gastrointestinal disorders, liver disease, chronic renal disease, osteoporosis, cancer, and food allergies and intolerance. On the other hand, a behavior-based consideration of eating disorders (“Eating Disorders: Disorders of Under- and Overnutrition” by Kelly C. Allison, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA) may introduce new thought directions in some
Book review / Nutrition 27 (2011) 124–125
readers who may have been unfamiliar with the complex interactions between the psychological nature of these disorders and their nutritional therapeutics. Building on the foundation provided by the bulk of the text, several “advanced” chapters explore areas of nutrition where much less consensus exists. The emerging but not yet universally accepted importance of diet and continued physical activity to the primary prevention of cancer and to cancer survivorship, pioneered by the advocacy of the American Institute for Cancer Research (aicr.org), is introduced by Cindy D. Davis, Ph.D., and John A. Milner, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD (“Diet, Physical Activity, and Cancer Prevention”). The preemerging fusion of the sciences of nutrition and genomics is introduced in a chapter on “Inherited Metabolic Disorders and Nutritional Genomics: Choosing the Wrong Parents” by Asima R. Anwar, B.S., of the Parks and Recreation Department of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and Scott P. Segal, Ph.D., of Winona State University, Winona, MN. Instead of simply offering the routine tables listing such disorders, available in many other sources, the authors suggest that the reader mentally organize inherited metabolic disorders into three categories that each suggest the therapeutic management approach that is the most likely to succeed in achieving life extension while preventing myopic failure to recognize secondary comorbidities: disorders
125
presenting as intoxication or encephalopathy, disorders of energy metabolism, and disorders involving complex molecules. Another chapter, provided in acknowledgement of a growing theme in modern nutrition and medicine (“Nutritional Challenges of Girls and Women” by Margaret A. Maher, Ph.D., and Kate Fireovid, M.S., of the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, La Crosse, WI), itself challenges the 19th- and 20th-century preconception that “humans are humans” and emphasizes the unproven but likely hypothesis that males and females of almost any age differ biologically to an extent sufficient to require the separate consideration of their nutritional needs and responses. Although after finishing the book the reader will not have become a nutritionist, a much greater understanding of the place of nutrition in medical practice and human health will have taken deep root. It is to be hoped that this seedling will be nurtured into maturity by those medical professionals conscious of the power of nutrition as medicine.
Michael J. Glade, Ph.D. Skokie, Illinois, USA Available online October 15, 2010 doi:10.1016/j.nut.2010.08.008
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Nutrition journal homepage: www.nutritionjrnl.com
Book review Nutrition Guide for Physicians. Ted Wilson, Ph.D., Norman J. Temple, Ph.D., George A. Bray, M.D., and Marie Boyle Strubble, Ph.D., eds. Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey, 2010. ISBN: 9781-60327-430-2 (hardbound); 978-1-60327-431-9 (electronic). This addition to the Humana Press Nutrition and Health series represents an ambitious attempt to fill a major deficiency in the nutrition education of most physicians. The editors have selected an outstanding group of nutritionally oriented health care professionals who have combined the goals of clarity, depth, consensus, cutting edge, laboratory interest, and practical applicability—all characteristics that are necessary prerequisites to encouraging the penetration of science-based nutrition into medical practice. Each individual chapter focuses on a particular “module” in a way that is both familiar to seasoned physicians and friendly to medical students. A set of “Key Points” sets the theme for each subtopic and serves to “set the table” for the cornucopia of information that follows. Unlike many nutrition textbooks, the authors of these chapters have shied away from plunging deeply into human biochemistry and instead have concentrated on clinical outcomes. The major teaching points of each chapter are reiterated and summarized near the end of each chapter, which finishes with a carefully selected list of “Suggested Further Reading” that complements the list of references that were cited in the chapter. While many of the usual and expected topics are covered, including dietary fats, dietary fiber, the vitamins and minerals, understanding tables of dietary recommendations, interpreting food labels, and food sources of various nutrients, other chapters introduce topics of potentially greater current interest among the medical community. For example, in their chapter, “Sugar and Artificial Sweeteners: Seeking the Sweet Truth,” Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D., and Kiyah J. Duffey, Ph.D., of the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, emphasize the increasing importance of the calories contained in beverages to obesity-promoting unbalanced caloric intakes. Taking a different perspective (“Dietary Recommendations for Non-Alcoholic Beverages”), Ted Wilson, Ph.D., of Winona State University, Winona, MN, suggests that the health benefits of coffee, tea, and milk justify promoting their consumption, while the caloric contents of fruit and vegetable juices and soft drinks argue against their consumption. In their discussion of “Vegetarian and Vegan Diets: Weighing the Claims,” Claire McEnvoy, R. D., and Jayne V. Woodside, Ph.D., of the Centre for Clinical and Population Science, Belfast, Ireland, sort through the potential health benefits as well as dangers of these popular restricted diets. In an effort to blend environmental consciousness with nutritional science, and reflecting the increasing concern over such issues in Europe, the nutritional superiority and greater safety of
organically grown produce is explored in a chapter (“Issues of Food Safety: Are ‘Organic’ Apples Better?”) by Gianna Ferretti, Ph.D., and Davide Neri, Ph.D., of the Universita Politechnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy, and Bruno Borsari, Ph.D., of Winona State University, Winona, MN. The particular nutritional needs that occur during various stages of the life cycle are reviewed in chapters on pregnancy, infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and old age (“middleage,” that transitional period between the vigor of youth and the deceleration of old age, receives scant attention). The chapter on “Pregnancy: Preparation for the Next Generation” by Jennifer J. Francis, M.P.H., of Southern Maine Community College, South Portland, ME, discusses the impact of nutrition on pregnancy outcome from periconception through lactation and provides guidelines for the management of women who experience gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, or multiple pregnancies. The role of human breast milk as a food is evaluated in the chapter on “Infants: Transition from Breast to Bottle to Solids” by Jacki M. Rorabaugh, B.S., of Winona State University, Winona, MN, and James K. Friel, Ph.D., of the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. The interplay between the demands of growth and the development of food allergies and sensitivities are probed in the chapter on “Young Children: Preparing for the Future” by Jennifer J. Francis, M.P.H., of Southern Maine Community College, South Portland, ME. The following chapter on nutrition during adolescence and young adulthood (“Adolescents and Young Adults: Facing the Challenges” by Kathy Roberts, M.S., of the College of Saint Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ) emphasizes the importance of the social challenges during this time in life to the development of the ostensibly nutritionally sensitive eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. The physiology of human aging motivates the chapter on the beneficial potential of healthy nutrition on the elderly (“Healthy Aging: Nutritional Concepts for Older Adults” by Eleanor D. Schlenker, Ph.D., of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). A brief primer on nutritional assessment (“Nutritional Status: An Overview of Methods for Assessment”) by Catherine M. Champagne, Ph.D., and George A. Bray, M.D., of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, provides tools for determining whether those needs are being fulfilled. Consistent with its target audience, much of the second half of the book is devoted to chapters on the physiology, metabolic aspects, and medical nutritional management of disease conditions with which the average physician will be all too familiar: obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension, gastrointestinal disorders, liver disease, chronic renal disease, osteoporosis, cancer, and food allergies and intolerance. On the other hand, a behavior-based consideration of eating disorders (“Eating Disorders: Disorders of Under- and Overnutrition” by Kelly C. Allison, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA) may introduce new thought directions in some
Book review / Nutrition 27 (2011) 124–125
readers who may have been unfamiliar with the complex interactions between the psychological nature of these disorders and their nutritional therapeutics. Building on the foundation provided by the bulk of the text, several “advanced” chapters explore areas of nutrition where much less consensus exists. The emerging but not yet universally accepted importance of diet and continued physical activity to the primary prevention of cancer and to cancer survivorship, pioneered by the advocacy of the American Institute for Cancer Research (aicr.org), is introduced by Cindy D. Davis, Ph.D., and John A. Milner, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD (“Diet, Physical Activity, and Cancer Prevention”). The preemerging fusion of the sciences of nutrition and genomics is introduced in a chapter on “Inherited Metabolic Disorders and Nutritional Genomics: Choosing the Wrong Parents” by Asima R. Anwar, B.S., of the Parks and Recreation Department of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and Scott P. Segal, Ph.D., of Winona State University, Winona, MN. Instead of simply offering the routine tables listing such disorders, available in many other sources, the authors suggest that the reader mentally organize inherited metabolic disorders into three categories that each suggest the therapeutic management approach that is the most likely to succeed in achieving life extension while preventing myopic failure to recognize secondary comorbidities: disorders
125
presenting as intoxication or encephalopathy, disorders of energy metabolism, and disorders involving complex molecules. Another chapter, provided in acknowledgement of a growing theme in modern nutrition and medicine (“Nutritional Challenges of Girls and Women” by Margaret A. Maher, Ph.D., and Kate Fireovid, M.S., of the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, La Crosse, WI), itself challenges the 19th- and 20th-century preconception that “humans are humans” and emphasizes the unproven but likely hypothesis that males and females of almost any age differ biologically to an extent sufficient to require the separate consideration of their nutritional needs and responses. Although after finishing the book the reader will not have become a nutritionist, a much greater understanding of the place of nutrition in medical practice and human health will have taken deep root. It is to be hoped that this seedling will be nurtured into maturity by those medical professionals conscious of the power of nutrition as medicine.
Michael J. Glade, Ph.D. Skokie, Illinois, USA Available online October 15, 2010 doi:10.1016/j.nut.2010.08.008