The prescription to which this book's title refers is a diet plan. The authors advise eating most of your protein at breakfast and lunch, and most of your carbohydrates in the evening. This "Circadian Diet," they say, promotes alertness in the daytime and restful sleep at night. They claim it gives you the food components you need when you need them, in sync with your body's biological rhythms.

Thousands of studies, most conducted in the past 50 years, show that the biological clock in the brain governs appetite as well as sleeping, waking, body temperature, hormone secretion, memory, mood, and much more. Most bodily functions follow predictable daily patterns, known as circadian from the Latin words "circa" meaning about and "dies," a day.

Advances in the field benefit people with trouble sleeping or staying awake at the times they desire. Appreciation for the importance of light in setting daily rhythms helps jet-lagged travelers and shiftworkers. Women with menstrual cycle disorders, and persons with problems tied to annual cycles, such as winter or summer depressions, forms of seasonal affective disorder, also gain from new research findings.

Research on sleep, light, and mood far outpaces that on nutrition. Some evidence suggests, however, that the body preferentially relies on proteins for energy early in the day, and stores carbohydrates in liver and muscle tissues more extensively at night. For people interested in losing weight, the most important meal of the day is breakfast. Studies in the mid-1970s at the University of Minnesota showed that people who ate only one 2,000 calorie meal a day for a week lost weight when they ate that meal early in the day. They gained weight when they ate the exact same meal in the evening.

Sidney Baker, a family physician who practices in Connecticut, bases his recommendations on findings by biological rhythms' researchers as well as on his own experiences with patients. The book jacket identifies him as a leader in the alternative health movement. Karen Baar writes frequently on alternative health topics for national circulation magazines.

"Most doctors," Baker and Baar assert, "don't know or bother much about nutrition and diet." Yet the public displays a seemingly insatiable appetite for information about these topics. Nearly 2000 books on nutrition and diets were published in the United States alone last year.

There is some irony here. Americans of all ages are fatter than ever. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that 55 percent of persons aged 18 and over in the US--97 million adults--are overweight. One suspects that if any of the diet books offered truly effective advice, there would be fewer such books and more leaner people.

The keystone of the diet plan outlined in this book is the Rhythmic Shake, consumed for breakfast alone or in addition to other protein foods. The recipe is simple: 3 ounces of whole or skim milk, 3 ounces of regular yogurt or low fat or no fat yogurt, 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseeds, 3 tablespoons soy protein isolate, and 1/4 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen.

The authors advise eating protein foods for lunch, and reserving pasta, breads, potatoes, and the like for your evening meal. They also suggest eating plenty of fruit and vegetables. Their plan includes all food groups and meets federal nutritional guidelines. They further advise limiting caffeine consumption to mid-afternoon, restricting alcohol consumption to the evening, and eliminating artificial sweeteners from your diet. The diet also incorporates specific foods they assert will reduce your risk of cancer and other diseases, a subject that remains a matter of scientific debate. The authors tell how to use their plan to minimize jet lag or problems from working on rotating shifts.

If your main interest is maintaining or losing weight, their diet plan may be worth a try. It suggests that the most important diet aid may be one you already own: your inner clock.

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