Index
- What is clinical nutrition?
- Why is it performed?
- What does it consist of?
What is clinical nutrition?
Clinical Nutrition corresponds to the branch of Medicine in charge of providing care to all those patients who fight their illnesses by means of a correct and adequate nutrition according to their clinical history.
In addition, within preventive medicine, clinical nutrition is a way of advising to prevent the appearance of diseases linked to inadequate nutrition.
Therefore, we can say that clinical nutrition has a curative approach, but it goes further and also has a preventive approach. For example, nutritional therapy is key in the treatment of diabetes, but it is also key to prevent it.
Why is it performed?
There are many patients who, because of their underlying disease or genetic predisposition to suffer from it, need dietary-nutritional advice. Some of the main pathologies are:
- Metabolic diseases:
- Dyslipidemias
- Arterial hypertension
- Diabetes mellitus
- Overweight and obesity:
- Bariatric surgery (gastric by-pass, bilio-pancreatic, sleeve).
- Intragastric balloon
- Digestive diseases:
- Digestive intolerances
- Abdominal distension
- Constipation
- Diarrhea
- Irritable colon
- Gastritis
- Gastric ulcus
- Biliary lithiasis
- Acute/chronic pancreatitis
- Inflammatory bowel disease: Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis
- Diverticulosis, diverticulitis
- Postoperative digestive surgery
- Renal insufficiency
- Oncological pathology, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy treatment.
- Neurological diseases. Gastrostomy tubes
What does it consist of?
Clinical nutrition is based on the testing and prescription of therapeutic diets applied to different pathologies, which require the direction and supervision of researchers capable of designing the composition of the diet. As well as the duration of the same and assessment of the results observed in the evolution of the patient’s disease.
In general, the patients who are more likely to receive nutritional assistance are those who suffer from a disease or have a predisposition to it. They are usually digestive, metabolic or overweight ailments.