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AEROBIC NUTRITION by

AEROBIC NUTRITION

By

Pub Date: May 29th, 1981
Publisher: Hawthorn/Dutton

A healthy diet prescription based on a still-questionable premise, with exercise program and cookbook thrown in. Mannerberg, once associated with the Pritikin Center, and Roth, a cookbook author, arrived at this well-balanced diet (low in fat, with less refined food, etc.) by a route different from other recent authors: their goal was to find foods which maximize blood flow and therefore oxygen supply to body organs. Two factors, they maintain, can decrease blood flow. First, diets high in fat, concentrated sugars, and alcohol seem to cause high triglyceride (a type of fat) levels in the blood; this makes the red blood cells clump together and therefore less able to carry oxygen. Second, lack of exercise and a sedentary lifestyle decrease blood flow because muscle action helps move blood around the body. The authors also look at other health problems such as obesity, which are diet-related, and the association between diet and long-term degenerative diseases. The triglyceride connection, however, receives the most attention: its effects are fairly well-documented in cardiovascular conditions, but little notice has been taken in the popular press as yet. The brief exercise section recommends the ""Mannerberg Method of Movement,"" which is vigorous walking; the balance of the book (about half) is devoted to a cookbook--weight-loss plan included--which pushes less fat, less animal protein, and fewer refined foods than the average diet. The real difference, though, is in the philosophy-of potential interest to those (like cardiac patients) at particular risk.