Food is supposed to nourish the body by providing the required nutrients to build the body and provide the energy needed by cells for our everyday lives. However, food has also been known to be a major cause of diseases in the human body. Consuming certain types of food in large quantities can result in common ailments such as obesity, diabetes and diarrhea and many more. It is for this realization that a lot of scientific studies have been carried out on the role of food in diseases. Food related diseases are usually classified as either infections or poisonings. Poisonings are known to be caused by the ingestion of toxins that are in tissues of particular animals and plants. They are also found in toxins (metabolic products) formed and excreted by microorganisms (such as algae, fungi or bacteria) while they multiply in poisonous substances or foods that may be incidentally or intentionally added to foods as a result of storing, transporting, processing or producing. Infections are normally caused by the entrance of pathogenic microorganisms and the reaction of the body to the presence of the microorganisms or to the toxins the same generate in the body. For example, intestinal infections are manifested by in vivo mucosal penetration or enterotoxin production. After mucosal penetration, the organisms either pass into other tissues or multiply in the mucosa. With this, food related diseases are classified according to the type of agent that is considered responsible for the illness. It can be anything such as radionuclides, poisonous chemicals, toxic animals, poisonous plants, fungal (mushroom or mycotoxin), parasitic (helminthes, trematodes, nematodes, cestodes, protozoan), rickettsial, viral and bacterial. In each group the first to appear on the list are the diseases of contemporary. Relative importance of every disease varies from place to place and from time to time. This reference will include majority of food related diseases. It will also include the diseases that are food related despite the lack of sufficient proof to deem this 100% food related. It will also include the diseases that have a causative agent in foods, but at the same time lack proof that transmission is unknown. The article does not attempt to list all foods that are considered as radionuclides, poisonous chemicals or poisonous plants. Instead, plats that are mistaken for food or usually used as food are the ones that have been reviewed. Foods of primary public health importance have been listed. The symptoms of every disease are normally placed in the order of their predominance or occurrence. Take note that individual cases may not always manifest the symptoms listed. In some cases, there will be presence of additional symptoms and signs. The latent period (in poisons) or incubation period of a disease is the time of consumption of contaminated food to the point where the first symptoms are experienced. This means individual cases are likely to have incubation periods that vary form the times stipulated below. Control measures below are listed in accordance to their level of importance. Since a complete bibliography of the literature from which this book was compiled would be very extensive, a few or one of the references to each disease is provided merely as more of a guideline.

Diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular, diabetes, obesity and heart disease are referred to as Chronic because they tend to last for a period of 3 months or more according to the United States National Center for Health Statistics. These are diseases which cannot be cured through medication and cannot be prevented through vaccination. They have become a global epidemic in many developed nations of the world and this field of research has an unprecedented interest level. This book will tackle selected reviews on the current strategies in the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases by the use of the latest improvements in the nontraditional plants, herbal remedies and food additives. This book is composed of contribution from different scientist of various parts of the world in addition to the participants of the Essential Foods for the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases international conference. Essential Foods Center was the organizer of this conference and it was held on November 14th -15th 2005 in USA, Texas. The Main objective of this book is to present the contribution of various types of foods which we refer to as Essential foods in the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases by bringing together experts in the food industry, biology and medicine. This book will cover many articles which are intended to give the practical usage of food supplements and botanicals by experts in medicine globally in the case of hypertension, cancer etc.

Religion plays an inevitable part in shaping our day to day lives, inspires our values, influences our beliefs, and helps us build a strong foundation of morals and ethics. On the other hand, traveling also plays a pivotal role in lives as every human being on this planet has to travel every day for various purposes. The most appreciated and desired form of traveling is the one which is done for leisure purposes. Traveling gives a person the opportunity to explore every corner of the world. The form of travel that brings both the purity of religion and the peace of traveling is called "Religious Tourism". Religious tourism is one of the most prominent and oldest forms of tourism but very little focus is given on this prolific form of tourism. For years, religious tourism has played significant role in establishing the international tourism industry and diminishing the obstacles of traveling beyond borders. The foundation of this book is derived from both our personal and professional passion and enthusiasm in tourism and our own religious backgrounds and religious belief systems, which guide our everyday lives and enlightens everyone. Every year millions of people travel to religiously sacred places not only to perform their religious activities but also to encounter the serenity of those places. This book focuses on the evolution of major religions of the world, Religious places all around the world, Religious practices all around the world and also deals with topics like atheism, agnostic beliefs and different kinds of religious practices such as nature religion and new age religion. In addition to volume, this form of travel is geographically widespread with most regions of the world being home to sacred spaces that appeal to religious adherents or other people who visit sacred spaces out of sheer curiosity. Given this lack of information compared to other forms of tourism and the fact that scholars, religious leaders and pilgrimage destination officials continue to debate the nature of tourism, religion, pilgrimage and religious tourism, the idea for this book developed. Scholars of religion and scholars of tourism are brought together in this volume to examine the social, economic, historical and political elements of the religion and tourism crossover. The book aims to create empirically an overview of various world religions and spiritual movements and their dealings, requirements, practices and traditions in relation to various forms of travel. Unfortunately, space and time constraints necessarily limited the range and scope of faiths that could have been analyzed. The decision to include a specific belief system was based on availability of information and expertise. In this approach, efforts were made to include contributors who are both academic scholars and where possible adherents of the belief systems under examination. In all but a few cases, this was a notable success. Our hope is that this volume will provide first-hand insight into the spiritual and religious elements of tourism and provide a conceptual foundation for increased research into this pervasive but understudied global phenomenon.