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Why do Health Professionals Need to Know More About Nutrition?

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Food and Nutritional Supplements

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Abstract

Nutrition and diet are fundamental to health with diet regarded as the most important environmental factor determining longevity. Although Hippocrates recognised the importance of a good diet for the prevention of disease, the science of nutrition has only emerged recently as an important discipline in modern medicine. Clearly nutrition is not just a simple case of ensuring regular consumption of the recommended daily doses of vitamins and minerals. Instead, nutritional science broadly encompasses the intake, absorption and metabolism of dietary constituents, along with the promotion of health via prevention of diet-related diseases. As we enter the 21st Century, scientific advances on the relationship of dietary substances to the cellular mechanisms of disease are occurring with increasing regularity and frequency. Yet despite the increasing scientific evidence, present day health professionals are typically untrained in the impact of diet in health and disease [1]. Furthermore, simple dietary deficiencies still occur within developed societies [2]

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Authors
  1. Matthew E. Joynson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Public Health Nutrition Unit Trinity and All Saints, College of the University of Leeds, Leeds, LS18 5HD, UK

    Joan K. Ransley  & Judith K. Donnelly  & 

  2. The Centre for Integrated Medicine Institute for General Practice and Primary Care, University of Sheffield Northern General Hospital, Sheffield, S5 7AU, UK

    Nicholas W. Read

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Joynson, M.E. (2001). Why do Health Professionals Need to Know More About Nutrition?. In: Ransley, J.K., Donnelly, J.K., Read, N.W. (eds) Food and Nutritional Supplements. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-56623-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-56623-3_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-62598-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-56623-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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