Hernell Olle, Schmitz Jacques (eds). Nestlè Nutrition Workshop Series Pediatric Program; , Vol. 56 . Karger, Basel, Switzerland , 2005. , 237 pp. ISBN: 3‐8055‐7906‐3 . Price: 228CHF.
The books from this well‐known series are following, year by year, the changing picture of infant nutrition and have led the paediatricians from the concept of dietary requirements to that of functional nutrition, that is, through considering not just the dietary needs for growth, but also optimal development and clinical outcome. A peculiarity of these books lies in the fact that they are proceedings of recent conferences, so are up to date, and, moreover, give researchers the opportunity to present data according to their personal viewpoints, with a wide discussion at the end of any presentation. The discussion of each topic is well reported and documented through appropriate citations.
Within this context, the present textbook includes contributions from experts who, while presenting very recent observations, once more raise unanswered questions. The sections of the book focus mainly on two major issues:
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Gut health, including allergy, gluten sensitivity, the role of microbiota and the surprising connections between motility and allergy. There is a focus on dietary fibre, the dietary component linking gut physiology, intestinal flora and the local immune balance;
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Long‐term effects of early nutrition, including the reciprocal influences of dietary habits and taste preferences, and the analysis of the early dietary factors potentially connected with the later development of some metabolic disorders such as obesity, the metabolic syndrome and type I diabetes.
The last presentations deal with some behavioural and technical aspects arising now from the new knowledge on the effects of food on future health and food processing on food properties. But the main point (well underlined in the Editors’ introduction) is the promotion of nutrition in the paediatric curriculum, in order to facilitate translation of the new scientific findings into everyday practice. As well as paediatricians, the role of parents (as targets of the scientific communication and translators of the information into everyday practice) becomes fundamental too, and (as a third factor) the food industry comes into play in order to change the composition of baby foods and facilitate the switch towards healthiest dietary intakes within the traditional dietary habits.
The book may well contribute to familiarize generalist paediatricians, even those with very limited knowledge in paediatric nutrition, to the hottest topics in infant nutrition, and give them the perspective that not just breastfeeding and human milk, but also complementary feeding and, on the whole, the dietary intakes of the first 2–3 years of life may have lifelong‐lasting constitutive, developmental and behavioural consequences. While ongoing studies will provide new data in the next years, the fundamental take‐home message from this book for paediatricians is to maintain a close connection with parents as far as the dietary habits of their babies and young children beyond the first 6 months of life are concerned, and to drive them towards the difficult pathway of preventive medicine.