Nutrition plays a fundamental role in the maintenance of good health. The link between nutrition and immunity is evident from the effects of malnutrition which results in secondary immunodeficiency, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies which lead to increase in susceptibility to infectious diseases. In recent years, advances in clinical and experimental studies have provided the mechanistic basis of the effects of nutrients on immune cells. This book is aimed at nutrition or dietetics students who are learning immunology for the first time. It covers all related fields comprehensively, from vitamins and minerals to food allergies and probiotics. Special topics such as cancer and exercise are also introduced. It will help establish a good foundation for students to understand how nutrients can affect the function of immune cells and maintain a healthy body in normal and diseased states.

Seow Heng Fong is formerly Professor of Molecular Immunology at Universiti Putra Malaysia, and is an elected Fellow of the Malaysian Academy of Science. She has 32 years of experience in research and has a keen interest in the field of cancer and infectious diseases. She has taught Medical Immunology for the last 20 years and Nutritional Immunology over the last 6 years. She has published at least 120 papers and is on the editorial board of the Malaysian Journal of Pathology. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences from the University of London, UK.