The Building Blocks of Life

Book excerpt: Within the United Kingdom (UK), most mainstream healthcare practitioners receive little or no nutrition education during their years of training. As a consequence, the understanding of nutrition amongst primary care practitioners such as general practitioners, pharmacists, midwives, and practice nurses is limited and is largely focused on energy consumption and obesity. There is little knowledge of the wealth of micronutrients that underpin health, nor of the ticking timebomb of insufficient intakes of those micronutrients amongst a significant proportion of the population in the UK. The Building Blocks of Life: A Nutrition Foundation for Healthcare Professionals is a step towards redressing that balance. It sets out an informative and engaging narrative on how and why nutrition is the basis for good health. It discusses UK-specific issues with regards to diet and intakes of vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and other micronutrients. It also raises concerns about the potential negative health implications of the generally poor UK diet and suggests ways that healthcare practitioners can support patients in improving their long-term health outlook. Nutrition policy in the UK needs to be dragged into the 21st century and this book sets out evidence-based arguments which challenge current public health myths such as the idea that 10 micrograms of vitamin D is all anyone needs or the messaging around the consumption of saturated fat vs highly processed seed oils or that everyone can get all the nutrients they need from a varied and balanced diet. Although The Building Blocks of Life: A Nutrition Foundation for Healthcare Professionals focuses on concerns around poor diet and the consequent micronutrient inadequacies in the UK, the nutritional detail is relevant no matter where you are in the world. Everyone eats, all the time. It is time that mainstream medicine looked towards food as both a cause and a solution to many of the chronic degenerative conditions that plague modern life.