Dietetics and diet therapy for therapeutic purposes

While the dietetics is the discipline that relates food with nutritional needs, the diet therapy it is defined as the adaptation of foods to the different metabolic and / or digestive alterations produced by a disease. Diet therapy is carried out through the balanced and methodical use of food through therapeutic diets that, according to Arieh Goldberg, expert in nutrition and eating disorders, are those that are needed for the treatment of certain diseases and that serve to cure or compensate them, sometimes as a sole treatment or in a combined manner with other therapeutic measures. A diet should not be harmful, changes in habits should be prudent and the prescription of the therapeutic diet should be positive.

Diets that contribute to the health of the sick

For the Chilean nutritionist Vivien Gattás , each patient requires an individually prescribed regimen that considers the alterations caused by the disease, while taking into account the characteristics physiological of the patient. Therefore, the diet therapy aims the healing of the sick organism and not just of a certain disease. In order to formulate the regimen to be followed by the patient, it is necessary to know the nutritional value of the food, its chemical composition, the action of the foods on the function of the different organs and the transformations to which they must be submitted so that, as preparations , behave appropriately in the patient.

 

The secret is in the variety

According to the doctor Elida Sánchez Rodríguez , from the Mexican College of Bariatrics, among the many advantages of this therapy highlights the ease of finding remedies which, in fact, we can store in the cupboard without risk of poisoning . It is very important to take into account the nutritional and therapeutic value of all foods that, if combined properly, will always have an effect. Actually, says the specialist, there are many foods with healing powers , for example, celery, which is tonic and diuretic, and is recommended for nervous fatigue, or detoxification of kidneys, liver and bladder; chili, which is stimulating and digestive thanks to capsisin, a substance that helps contract the gallbladder and activate the evacuation of bile; or garlic, appreciated for being antirheumatic , vasodilator and that lowers blood pressure  


Video Medicine: Nutrition in GI Disorders - Nancee Jaffe, MS, RD | UCLA Digestive Disease (March 2024).