The largest interventional and monitoring studies to date worldwide give us an excellent overview of our current state of knowledge on the physiological interactions between nutrition and exercise. This wealth of evidence covers aspects like body weight, metabolism, fatty tissue, hormones, the cardiovascular system and skeletal structures all ultimate determinants of immunity. The book you hold in your hands is based on the findings generated by such long-term investigations. Herein, each topic is dealt with page by page in an understandable manner. The reader will find illustrations and discussions of key physiological adaptation mechanisms and the basic principles of preventive healthcare. This non-fiction work has been written to be easily comprehensible for all individuals interested in learning the salient facts about the popular subjects of health, fitness and nutrition. For this 3rd edition, the text has been revised and updated to the state of the art in science and medicine, including the addition of 11 new topics.

Dietger Mathias, born in 1939 in Berlin, studied chemistry and medicine in Berlin and Heidelberg, receiving his doctoral degree in both subjects and his post-doctoral lecturer qualification in medicine; for one year, he was a research fellow under Severo Ochoa  at New York University, the 1959 Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology. Afterwards, he spent two years as a research assistant at the Hannover Medical School (MHH) and the following eighteen years at Heidelberg University Hospital, where he earned his specialization in laboratory medicine/transfusion medicine. From 1992 to 2012, Dr. Mathias ran a private practice in Geesthacht and Berlin, Germany.

Pivotal long-term.- The human body a giant chemical factory.- Our food an energy transfer medium .- Energy production.- Energy production when food is scarce.- Energy expenditure I basal metabolic rate.- Energy expenditure II heat production.- Energy expenditure III active metabolic rate.- Physical activity level.- Control of energy metabolism in the brain.- Control of energy metabolism by endogenous hormones.- Control of energy metabolism the reward system.