Lippincott Illustrated Reviews: Biochemistry

Citation

Abali, E. E., Cline, S. D., Franklin, D. S., & Viselli, S. M. (2025). Lippincott Illustrated Reviews: Biochemistry (9th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.

Chapter Summary

The ninth edition runs to about 640 pages in print and is organised into 35 chapters grouped in units, followed by an appendix, an index and figure sources. The units move from proteins and enzymes through the metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids and nitrogen-containing compounds to the integration of metabolism, medical nutrition and molecular biology. The publisher describes an outline organisation with chapter overviews and summaries, extensive illustrations and tables, study questions with answers for every chapter, board-style questions, "Clinical Application" boxes, integrative case studies with questions and answers, online animations, and cross-references to other titles in the Lippincott Illustrated Reviews series.

Chapters 1–5: Amino Acids and the Role of pH; Protein Structure; Globular Proteins; Fibrous Proteins; Enzymes

The opening chapters set up the molecular basis for the rest of the book: amino acids and their behaviour at different pH, the levels of protein structure, globular proteins (hemoglobin and heme are among the book's most frequent terms), fibrous proteins such as collagen, and enzymes, including their regulation and inhibition.

Chapters 6–14 (Bioenergetics and Carbohydrate Metabolism): Bioenergetics and Oxidative Phosphorylation; Introduction to Carbohydrates; Introduction to Metabolism and Glycolysis; Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle and Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex; Gluconeogenesis; Glycogen Metabolism; Monosaccharide and Disaccharide Metabolism; Pentose Phosphate Pathway and Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide Phosphate; Glycosaminoglycans, Proteoglycans, and Glycoproteins

The largest unit, with nine chapters. It begins with energy transfer and the electron transport chain, introduces carbohydrate structure, and then follows the central pathways of glucose: glycolysis, the TCA cycle, gluconeogenesis, glycogen synthesis and breakdown, the metabolism of other sugars, and the pentose phosphate pathway as the source of NADPH. It ends with the carbohydrate-containing macromolecules: glycosaminoglycans, proteoglycans and glycoproteins.

Chapters 15–18 (Lipid Metabolism): Dietary Lipid Metabolism; Fatty Acid, Triacylglycerol, and Ketone Body Metabolism; Phospholipid, Glycosphingolipid, and Eicosanoid Metabolism; Cholesterol, Lipoprotein, and Steroid Metabolism

Four chapters on lipids from digestion and absorption to fatty acid synthesis and oxidation, ketone bodies, membrane and signalling lipids, and cholesterol and the lipoproteins (chylomicrons and VLDL among them) that carry lipids in the blood.

Chapters 19–22 (Nitrogen Metabolism): Nitrogen Disposal; Amino Acids: Degradation and Synthesis; Amino Acids: Conversion to Specialized Products; Nucleotide Metabolism

How the body removes nitrogen (through the urea cycle), breaks down and makes amino acids, converts them into specialised compounds such as heme and its breakdown product bilirubin, and synthesises and degrades nucleotides, including the purines.

Chapters 23–26 (Integration of Metabolism): Metabolic Effects of Insulin and Glucagon; The Feed/Fast Cycle; Diabetes Mellitus; Obesity

The unit that draws the pathways together: hormonal control by insulin and glucagon, how liver, muscle and adipose tissue shift between fed and fasting states, and two disorders of integrated metabolism, diabetes and obesity.

Chapters 27–29 (Medical Nutrition): Overview and Macronutrients; Vitamins; Minerals

Three chapters on nutrition in medicine: an overview with the macronutrients, then the vitamins and the minerals, with attention to deficiency states.

Chapters 30–35 (Storage and Expression of Genetic Information): DNA Structure, Replication, and Repair; RNA Structure, Synthesis, and Processing; Protein Synthesis; Regulation of Gene Expression; Biotechnology and Human Disease; Blood Clotting

The molecular biology unit, from DNA replication and repair through transcription, RNA processing and translation to gene regulation and biotechnology in relation to human disease. The final chapter, on blood clotting, closes the book.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–5: Proteins and Enzymes

• Protein structure: the levels of folding that determine a protein's function, as in globular and fibrous proteins.
• Enzyme regulation and inhibition: how enzymes speed reactions and how their activity is controlled and inhibited.

Bioenergetics and Carbohydrate Metabolism

• Oxidative phosphorylation: ATP production driven by electron transport in the mitochondria.
• Glucose homeostasis pathways: glycolysis, gluconeogenesis and glycogen metabolism, regulated to keep blood glucose stable.
• Pentose phosphate pathway: the source of NADPH and of sugars for nucleotide synthesis.

Lipid and Nitrogen Metabolism

• Lipoproteins: particles that transport lipids, including cholesterol and triacylglycerol, in the blood.
• Ketone bodies: fuels made by the liver from fatty acids during fasting.
• Nitrogen disposal: removal of amino-acid nitrogen as urea.

Integration, Nutrition and Genetic Information

• Feed/fast cycle: the coordinated metabolic changes between the fed and fasting states, under the control of insulin and glucagon.
• Micronutrients: vitamins and minerals and the diseases of deficiency.
• Gene expression: the flow from DNA to RNA to protein and its regulation.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Built for review. The publisher designed the book for rapid review and integration of a large amount of information, through an outline organisation, chapter overviews and summaries, and many illustrations and tables. It suits learners who need to consolidate a course quickly.
• Plenty of practice. Every chapter has study questions with answers, and board-style questions and integrative case studies with answers are added; the publisher names course and board examinations as the target.
• Clinical orientation. "Clinical Application" boxes and case studies connect each pathway to disease, and an entire unit integrates metabolism through insulin, glucagon, the feed/fast cycle, diabetes and obesity.
• Full medical syllabus in one volume. The 35 chapters cover structure, metabolism, nutrition and molecular biology, the range of a typical first-year medical biochemistry course. The book was selected as a Doody's Core Title, according to the publisher.

Limitations

• Condensed by design. An outline review of all of medical biochemistry in about 640 pages gives little space to experimental background or extended explanation; students meeting a topic for the first time may need a fuller textbook.
• Molecular biology in one unit. Genetics and gene expression occupy six chapters at the end, so courses that teach molecular biology in depth will need additional reading.
• Exam focus. The orientation toward course and board examinations shapes the selection of material; readers interested in research-level biochemistry will find it brief.

Where It Fits in the Course

In this course, Lippincott sits between the short review books and the full textbooks. Crash Course: Metabolism and Nutrition is a shorter, early-stage review of metabolism and nutrition with self-assessment, and Salway's Metabolism at a Glance presents each topic as a colour-coded pathway chart with facing text; both are good for a first pass or for quick revision, while Lippincott covers proteins, nutrition and molecular biology as well as metabolism.

Marks' Basic Medical Biochemistry is the fuller textbook alternative, teaching the same subjects through patient cases; it suits students who want more explanation than an outline review provides, and Lippincott can then serve for revision. After the core course, Frayn and Evans's Human Metabolism: A Regulatory Perspective deepens the integration unit (feeding, fasting and hormonal control across organs), and Marshall and colleagues' Clinical Biochemistry: Metabolic and Clinical Aspects moves on to laboratory diagnosis and organ-system disorders.

How to Use This Book

The book suits medical and other health-professions students in a first course in medical biochemistry, and anyone reviewing for course or board examinations. Introductory general and organic chemistry and basic cell biology are the expected background.

A practical approach:

• Follow the course order, unit by unit. The proteins and enzymes chapters come first because later chapters rely on them; the integration unit is best read after the carbohydrate and lipid units.
• Use each chapter in three passes. Read the overview, work through the outline and figures, then check yourself with the summary and the study questions before looking at the answers.
• Keep the clinical thread. Read the "Clinical Application" boxes and attempt the case studies as you go; they are where the pathways meet the diseases examined in later courses.
• Use the integration unit for revision. The insulin and glucagon, feed/fast, diabetes and obesity chapters review the metabolism units from the whole-body viewpoint.
• Add online animations and other series titles where a process is hard to visualise, following the book's cross-references.