ABSTRACT
Since antiquity, it has been known that food, exercise, and lifestyle, as well as our external environment, have an in¬uence on our health. The father of medicine, Hippocrates, advocated the treatment of illnesses through modišcation of diet (δíαιτα), which in ancient Greek meant ‘way of life’ and encompassed food, exercise, massage, baths, and other aspects of everyday activities. Food was a subject of interest for laypeople, writers, and philosophers. In the ‘Deipnosophists’ (‘the Banquet of the Philosophers’), written by Athenaeus in the early third century AD, we read the story of Democritus of Abdera, the ‘Laughing Philosopher’ (Athenaeus 1927). At the age of 104, approaching the end of his life, his food intake had gradually reduced and he was expecting to die. It was the time of the important Thesmophorian festival (a women’s festival in honor of goddesses Demeter and Persephone) and his centenarian sister, who looked after him at his home, asked him not to die during the festivities so that she could take part in them. Wanting to grant her request, he asked for a pot of honey to be brought to him. He was kept alive for 3 days by inhaling the fumes from the
1.1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................................3 1.2 Nutrition is a Science and an Art ..............................................................................................4 1.3 Nutrition as an Important Subject for Patients and their Carers ..............................................4 1.4 Recent Advances in the Science of Nutrition: Genes and the Environment ............................5
