Summary: | Although drug-nutrient interactions can produce therapeutic failure, adverse drug reactions, and altered nutritional status, many clinicians do not recognize this potential when prescribing drugs or understand that drug-nutrient interactions can be as important as drug-drug interactions. In Handbook of Drug-Nutrient Interactions, well-recognized and respected authorities comprehensively review many of the more common, and some less common, drug-nutrient interactions, detailing the mechanisms and clinical approaches to their effective management. Providing more than a simple listing of common interactions, this much needed work explores, in-depth, every major aspect of the problem, including drug and nutrient disposition, enzyme systems, the effects of nutritional status on drug disposition, and the influence of food, nutrients, and non-nutrient components on drug effects and disposition. The authors present the latest findings on the influence of medications on nutrient status and on those interactions relevant to life-cycle stages and to specific patient groups. Separate chapters examine the effects of caffeine, charcoal broiling, grapefruit juice, alcohol, garlic, ginko biloba, dietary minerals, folate, vitamins D and K, and calcium. Cutting-edge reviews offer detailed information on the major drugs affecting the cardiovascular and nervous systems, with emphasis on the antiepileptics. Extensive tables provide clinical recommendations and organize the data clearly to help the reader evaluate nutrition's critical role in optimizing drug efficacy, especially in at-risk populations. An extensive index and copious up-to-date references ensure rapid access to needed information and key citations. Comprehensive and clinically oriented, Handbook of Drug-Nutrient Interactions provides health professionals in many areas of research and practice with the most up-to-date, well-referenced, and easy-to-understand survey of nutrition's central importance in optimizing drug efficacy and avoiding adverse effects. It constitutes a benchmark in the field and should be on the desk of every prescribing healthcare professional as a key reference.
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