Handbook of Clinical Nutrition and Aging, edited by Connie Watkins Bales and Christine Seel Ritchie. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press; 2004. 698 pages, hardcover, $145.
The superb volume Handbook of Clinical Nutrition and Aging is the enthralling work of a group of highly skilled artisans. The volume was crafted by a duo of distinguished editors (both experts in the field of geriatric nutrition), working in conjunction with a professionally accomplished group of scientists as well as clinicians. The overarching goal of the work is to delineate strategies and therapies for understanding as well as managing nutritionally related medical issues involving individuals of advanced age. This stellar book can actually serve to erode the knotty relationship between clinical nutrition and aging for those who read carefully. Using a strong practical focus, the contributors examine the enormously complex field of clinical nutrition, with special emphasis on human aging. Overall, the book is a well-designed road map for health professionals working to improve both nutritional welfare as well as overall health of older adults.
Presented in textbook style, the volume cuts to the core of a vast array of nutritionally related information, research, and issues. A strongly didactic plume wafts delectably though the pages of this absorbing book. In a completely metaphoric sense, the textural material is as strong as a hammer breaking a rock and even radiates intellectual light. The book is broken up into separate parts: (1) trends in nutrition and health in older persons, (2) fundamentals of geriatric nutrition, and (3) nutritional consequences as well as potential opportunities associated with particular geriatric syndromes. Specific chapters that draw attention to individual issues include cancer, pulmonary and infectious diseases, as well as musculoskeletal, vascular, renal, endocrine, and alimentary tract disorder.
The various contributors draw specific attention to areas of nutritional concern that are in need of further investigation, and place a strong emphasis on the necessity for ongoing systematic research to examine the relationship between clinical nutrition and aging. In addition, the volume is also a straightforward and convenient resource for general information on nutrition issues as they relate to age (ie, basic research, preventive medicine, and clinical practice).
This artfully composed volume should be enlightening to all those constituencies that focus on improving the nutritional as well as general health of aging adults. Individuals who can greatly benefit from the expertise provided for in this book include nurses, nutritionists, physicians, epidemiologists, as well as specialists in chronic disease and preventive medicine.