Diet and Human Immune Function

Leading international researchers and clinicians comprehensively review in detail what is known about the ability of diet to enhance human immune function in health, disease, and under various condition of stress. The authors offer state-of-the-art critical appraisals of the influences on the human immune system of several important vitamins and minerals both singly and in combination. The authors also examine how nutrition modulates immune function in various disease states and under three forms of stress-vigorous exercise, military conditions, and air pollution. A much-needed overview of the nutritional consequences of drug-disease interactions provides recommendations for potential nutritional interventions that could increase drug efficacy and/or reduce adverse side effects. "Conclusions" and "Take Home Messages" at the end of each chapter give physicians clinical instructions about special diets and dietary components for many immune-related disease states.

I Overview.- 1 The Basics of Immunology for the Non-Immunologist.- 2 Assessment of Human Immune Response.- 3 Effects of Infection on Nutritional and Immune Status.- 4 Neonatal Nutrition and Immunity.- 5 Nutrition and Immunity in the Elderly.- II Vitamins and Immune Responses.- 6 Vitamin A.- 7 Vitamin C.- 8 Vitamin E.- 9 Carotenoids.- 10 Multivitamins.- III Minerals and Immune Responses.- 11 Iron.- 12 Selenium.- 13 Zinc.- IV Nutrition, Immunity, and Disease.- 14 Rheumatoid Arthritis.- 15 Osteoporosis, Nutrition, and the Immune System.- 16 HIV Infection.- 17 Probiotics and Immunomodulation.- 18 Dietary Fat, Immunity, and Cancer.- V Environmental Stressors.- 19 Exercise, Cytokines, and Lymphocytes: Nutritional and Metabolic Aspects.- 20 Military Studies and Nutritional Immunology: Undernutrition and Susceptibility to Illness.- 21 Air Pollution, Reactive Oxygen Species, and Allergic Bronchial Asthma: The Therapeutic Role of Antioxidants.- 22 Use of Drugs that Affect Nutrition and Immune Function.- VI Appendices.- I Abbreviations.- II Glossary.- III Related Books and Websites.