The author defines vita-nutrients as "all vitamins, minerals and amino acids and all other sources of nourishment that can safely and effectively replace many of the drugs and evasive procedures medicine imposes on us." In other words long standing scientific research has now placed an important emphasis on the use of nutrients as a cure for major and minor diseases.

Dr Atkins has been involved in the field of complementary medicine for over three decades. The main turning point in his career, he explains, was when he went on a weight- reducing diet which he had read about in the journal of the American Medical Association (AMA). He was put on a low-carbohydrate diet with vitamins and minerals, which aided weight loss and increased energy. This diet was successful and didn't leave him feeling hungry, so he decided to publish details of it in his previous book Dr Atkins' New Diet Revolution.

This was at a time when the AMA were promoting a high carbohydrate diet for weight loss and did not accept Dr Atkins' methods. They actually publicly ridiculed his ideas and implied that he was actually lying about patients losing weight. But Dr Atkins became more involved in the study of nutritional therapy and learned how consistently people benefited from this type of treatment and this is where this new book comes in. Dr Atkins encourages people to read his book but then take their requests for nutritional treatment to their regular GPs. Selected case studies emphasise the success of his methods without his subjects suffering side effects.

Readers wishing to further their knowledge of nutrition as an alternative to medicine could also check out Neal Barnard's Foods that Fight Pain. --Louise Coyle

Synopsis
Robert Atkins is an expert in the field of complementary medicine and nutritional therapy. In this text, he presents the scientific basis for using vitamins, minerals, amino acid, herbs and hormones in the treatment and prevention of common illnesses.