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The Vitamins: Fundamental Aspects in Nutrition and Health,

Department of Biochemistry, Program in Nutrition and Health Sciences, 4013 Rollins Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322-3050

2nd ed, by Gerald F Combs Jr, 1998, 618 pages, hardcover, $59.95. Academic Press, San Diego.

This book is an update of the first edition, which was intended primarily for use in teaching although it was also expected to be useful as a desk reference for nutritionists and health professionals. This second edition retains the general format of the first but has been modestly expanded to include more recent findings in the areas of molecular biology and clinical medicine. The most significant changes have been made in the chapters on vitamins A, D, E, and C, and folate because there have been extensive recent developments in their study. Each chapter now has a listing of subdivisions set as a brief table of contents. For each specific vitamin group, a new first subdivision addresses the significance of the vitamin. Other subsections, as before, attend to sources, absorption, transport, metabolism, excretion, metabolic functions, and the separate issues of deficiency and toxicity. In some cases, as with niacin and folate, there are sections on pharmacologic uses. Case studies and questions round out the chapters, and each has a recommended reading list.

Most of the main points about each of the classic vitamins can be found in this text. The most significant dearth of information concerns methods used in the assays of the vitamins, their catabolites—which are often useful in status determinations—and the metabolically derived coenzymes and hormonally active forms that function biochemically. Clearly, it was not the purpose of a single volume to be so all-inclusive; however, it would have been appropriate to give references for such techniques, eg, the 12 volumes on "Vitamins and Coenzymes" in the Methods in Enzymology series, also by Academic Press.

The author, as stated in the preface to the first edition, intended his book to be "an accurate synopsis of present understanding but not a definitive reference to the original scientific literature." This is certainly the case, for it would be difficult to find the experimental bases from which most statements derive, much less identify the researchers who made the findings, from citations within the text. Although the footnotes may have been modestly expanded, these are mainly in the nature of comments or further explanations of points within the text rather than systematic references to research papers. Also, some of the reviews suggested as recommended reading are less useful than others if consideration is given to the investigative expertise of their authors rather than to how recent is the re-review of the subject. Overall, however, sufficient review material has been garnered to allow a diligent student to search further into the science that led to the book's summary of what is known about this important and interesting subject of vitamins.

This book continues to provide very good coverage of vitamins and should accomplish the educational aims of its author.

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