The Optimum Nutrition Bible [Paperback]

"The New Optimum Nutrition Bible" is excellent in many ways, and full of interesting and accurate information, with dietary advice that is, in general, sound, though I would have some reservations about the fairly heavy emphasis on supplements and fairly expensive blood tests, and, while these are, of course, optional, they may be beyond the pockets of many readers. The book is very much about personal health, without any side-trips about saving the environment, animal welfare, or ethical vegetarianism, and is none the worse for that, as there are many excellent books which cover these issues, along with the personal health aspects. I would, however, be concerned about the accuracy (or the provenance) of some of the claims in this particular Bible:

The comparison (on page 283) that the incidence of breast cancer in China is 1 in 100,000 women compared to an incidence of 1 in 10 women in Britain is not backed up by any reference to any study, scientific or otherwise, and does not appear to be borne out by Dr Colin Campbell's "China Study". There is no doubt that the incidence of breast (and other) cancers in rural China IS a good deal lower than in the West, but even in China some cancers were 100 times more frequent in some counties than in others, and I would very much like to know where the "one in 100,000" figure comes from.

Mr Holford does not seem to be aware that recommending the purchase of only "cold-pressed" oils is misleading, as this term apparently has no legal force, (i.e. there is no particular temperature defined as "cold")and has nothing, in the final analysis, to do with whether an oil is chemically refined or not (see "Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill" by Udo Erasmus.) I understand that the only unrefined oil normally available in general retail outlets is extra-virgin olive oil.

Ths more or less blanket recommendation,in the chapter "Eat Right For Your Blood Type", of the theories of Peter D'Adamo seems ill-advised.

While there may be something in these blood-group theories, I understand Mr D'Adamo has not referred to having published any studies supporting his theories in any independent scientific journals, and his diet has been denounced by "all of the leading scientific organizations, including government health organizations, and all the major universities and medical journals that have commented on it": (John Robbins in "The Food Revolution".) D'Adamo's diet has, apparently, pushed many people (Blood Type O & Type B) towards daily meat eating, which is surely a step in the wrong direction, when the thrust of all independent studies of diet in at least the last hundred years is towards a plant-based one, and a reduction or elimination of meat from the diet.

I thought I understood the basics of healthy eating, but this book taught me so much more. It all started when I read an article about longevity, which claimed that vitamins C and E were proven to slow down the ageing process. I was intrigued, not least because the quantities of vitamins that were recommended in the article were hundreds of times the RDA (recommended daily allowances). This sparked a hundred questions in my mind. What are RDAs and what do they mean? How well 'proven' are these anti-ageing claims in reality? Is it safe to take such (seemingly) massive doses of vitamins? And don't I get all of what I need anyway - after all, I eat lots of fruit, veg, carbhohydrate, and not a lot of fat. By the standards that I understood, I was eating a reasonably healthy, balanced diet.

I set out to answer these questions, but it took me a while to find this book. The shelves are stacked with A-z guides of vitamins, foods, ailments etc - but this was the only one I found that takes you through from first principles, and helps you to design a diet, including supplements, which is ideal for yor lifestyle. It answered all my questions, and many more I hadn't even thought about. Some facts that stunned me: - by the time you get round to eating that orange that's been shipped across the world, sat in a supermarket, and then lingered in your fruit bowl at home, it could easily contain NO vitamin C at all! - RDAs are based on research at the turn of the last century, and are based on preventing the diseases of the time, such as scrurvy and rickets. They have no relevance to today's big killers, such as cancer and heart diseases, yet hundreds of research studies have demonstrated that much larger daily does of vitamins can help prevent modern day diseases. - nine out of ten people in the UK who, like me, think they're getting a balanaced diet aren't even getting the very basic (and this book would argue, inadequate) RDA levels of minerals and vitamins, all because of the way our food is produced, sold, stored and cooked. One thing that appealed particularly about this book is that it isn't preachy; for examplel it recommends drinking little or no alcohol - but hey, if you choose to drink, it also gives you advice on how to minimise the harmful effects of alcohol by eating other foods and taking supplements. Great! Almost before I'd finished the first chapter, I had a strong feeling that this was going to be one of those rare books that really do change your life. Like other reviewers, I have bought additional copies to give to the people that I love. And on top of all this, it's really readable!

My first impression was that this is a well-put together and practical guide to nutritional health. The recommendations and diet advice seem more realistic than in some other comparable books, which is good.

I also liked the wide scope and open-minded approach of Patrick Holford's book. Other authors in this field can verge on the fanatical in their advocacy of particular (often rather extreme) diets, like Joseph Mercola's No Grain Diet, to give one example.

However, like some other reviewers I was concerned about the accuracy of some of the information, and the scientific standards applied. I have not been so diligent as to check particular facts, but just from having looked through the book in some detail, I picked up on vague and sometimes contradictory statements (the percentage of water of the human body is variously stated to be 62 or 65% - while this is not crucial and may vary, it reflects a sloppiness and cavalier attitude to presenting information (implicitly as scientific fact) that worried me. Information about required water intake is similar vague and contradictory.

The health/nutrition advice on various medical conditons may be handy but I strongly suspect that the 'supplement recipes' are based purely on generally known facts with a dash of Mr Holford's intuition and common sense - unlikely to do harm but far from proven to work.

At a glance, and without having read the book in full, the worst section appears to be the one about blood types, which uncritically summarises and even recommends Peter D'Adamo's scientifically unproven claims about dietary types. It seems a very slap-dash and frankly irresponsible chapter that's been quickly knocked up for the new edition. Even without being an expert or doing any research, its suggestion that early humans were primarily carnivorous hunters appears to in contradiction to the widely-accepted theory that they were omnivorous hunter-gatherers. I think the chapter also contains a factual error on blood type compatibility (Type A does not react against type O donor blood as stated, as type O individuals can donate blood to persons of any other blood type as far as I know). Bad science indeed.

This may be a too useful and practical guide to healthy eating to miss - I am well informed on nutrition but learnt quite a few new things and clarified areas of previous knowledge. But double-check the facts elsewhere before you go supplement shopping, and definitely skip the chapter on blood types!