INTRODUCTION

Views From the Mountaintop: Looking Back, Projecting Forward

Aristotle espoused that time and change are identical. If we accept this notion, and agree that our universe is constantly changing, then we are confronted with the question: When was the beginning of time? And, by whose measure and thus whose calendar? An informative website about the subject of time can be found at www.religioustolerance.org/main_day.htm, which points to the existence of numerous socioreligious ways to harness the passing of time, whose dimension we call the calendar. We therefore conclude that time is arbitrary. And even pronouncements by the US Naval or the British Greenwich Observatory that the new millennium starts on January 1, 2000 is consequently arbitrary given the numerous types of calendars. These range from the lesswell-known Eastern Orthodox Julian calendar to the more familiar Christian and Moslem calendars, to the Hindu, Baha, and Zoroastrian calendars. All are based on the lunar cycle, but each begins at a different starting point, considered signicant in that particular belief system, and each brings us to this date, but most to a year other than 2000. As soon as humans gain consciousness, we seek to dene our experience through the continuum of time by imposing dimensions and patterns . . . a beginning, a cycle, an end. This process is inuenced, no doubt, by the rhythms of the changing seasons, and the humans process of senescence. No matter what calendar we use, our human experience of time has continued to evolve. Particularly now, our awareness of time has undergone extreme contraction brought about by the growth toward a global village, worldwide commerce, instantaneous communication, rapid exchange of scientic knowledge, and our efforts to strike out beyond the boundaries of our globe. These factors are coalescing time so that it has evolved toward a standard dimension based on the Gregorian calendar. In the absence of a zero as a starting point for the accepted beginning of the measurement of time, the year 1 was used instead, which means the millennium begins in 2001. No matter the time, the Editors of this issue of Nutrition have agreed that now is a convenient moment to invite experts in selected nutrition topics with the intent of having them stand on the mountaintop, and, from that vantage point, as the title of this issue suggests, look back and project forward taking the curious reader

with them on a journey of discovery and enlightenment. Rational hindsight is relatively easy, but predicting what will occur in ones eld within the next few years, or even tomorrow, is difcult and requires the hard-found commodity courage. In selecting topics for these essays, we intuitively followed our innate genetic program. Starting with the nutritional evolution of humans, we progress to the human nutritional experience during the life cycle, its inuence by lifestyle, and the nutritional challenges faced by space ight. Next we explore topics on the management of nutrient status at a time when the individual loses this ability, as occurs during illness and hospitalization. We proceed to the humans assessment and expression of common nutrition experience in the form of epidemiologic and public-health issues, specic aspects of the world of nutrient-specic foods, and the quests for health and longevity as manifest in our pursuit of functional foods. Last, we peer into the technologies that currently confront us and that ultimately dene our progress in the eld of human nutrition endeavors. Reading each contribution has been, to the Editors, a tremendously exhilarating experience of discovery. We thank the contributors for the spirit with which they entered the challenge of looking from the mountaintop and their generosity of sharing with us their knowledge, which reects the greater human scientic endeavor throughout time. No doubt, there are topics that we have failed to cover. Among these, obesity and the control of appetite, a plague that threatens to engulf the globe and undermine human health, are scheduled to be covered in a forthcoming issue of Nutrition. We welcome suggestions and contributions on additional topics.

Michael M. Meguid, MD, PhD, FACN, FACS Editor-in-Chief Department of Surgery SUNY Upstate Medical University Hospital Syracuse, New York, USA Edward D. Harris, PhD Guest Editor Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics Faculty of Nutrition Texas A&M University College Station, Texas, USA

Nutrition 16:473, 2000 Elsevier Science Inc., 2000. Printed in the United States. All rights reserved.

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