Surviving With AIDS: A Comprehensive Program of Nutritional Co-Therapy

A diet and health expert presents a new way to improve the quality of life for AIDS sufferers, offering a high-calorie, high-carbohydrate diet

This is more than a sympathetic look at the nutritional problems faced by people with AIDS (PWAs). Collaborating with writer Whitney, Callaway ( The Callaway Diet ), an endocrinologist, considers nutrition as a means to be used in conjunction with medical treatment. Unfortunately, as he reminds readers, there is as yet no evidence that AIDS can be treated successfully with diet, "although many alternative nutritional therapists are recommending just that." He criticizes diets and nutritional therapies that he views as particularly harmful and that may even escalate the course of wasting disease: macrobiotic diets, megadoses of vitamins and minerals, yeast-free diets and other programs touting immune power or maximum immunity. The author contends that a well-balanced diet can make it possible for many PWAs to maintain their physical strength to better fight infections and reduce the debilitating aspects of such complications as chronic diarrhea. He also addresses other nutritional problems encountered by PWAs--poor appetite, inadequate nutrient digestion and absorption, and abnormal metabolism. He provides helpful advice on eating when the PWA has mouth and esophagus problems or nausea from drugs or chemotherapeutics, and also discusses tube feeding for the gravely ill. One chapter is devoted to recipes for easy-to-prepare foods.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Although there is no evidence that AIDS can be treated with diet, some nutritionists are promoting megadoses of vitamins and minerals and macrobiotic diets as alternatives to traditional medicine. Unlike other recent books such as Michio Kushi's AIDS, Macrobiotics, and Natural Immunity (Japan Pubs., 1990) and Ian Brighthope's The AIDS Fighters (Keats, 1987), the nutritional program outlined here is designed to be used in conjunction with established medical treatments. Since recent clinical studies show that malnutrition contributes to between 60-80 percent of AIDS' deaths, the authors discuss the dietary problems of AIDS patients and suggest practical ways to overcome them. They also provide a nutritional inventory, guidelines for eating to reduce various symptoms, and information on easy food preparation and dining out, in addition to specialized food plans, daily menus, recipes, and information on liquid formulas and tube feeding. This thorough, well-organized handbook should be included in all public and medical libraries.
- Linda Chopra, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.