05/02/2022
Clinical nutrition – what is it, and what role does it play in conventional medicine?
Put simply, clinical nutrition is a basic and applied science concerned with the relationship between food intake, biochemistry and wellbeing.
A comprehensive nutritional plan would, therefore, account for your weekly patisserie treats, your mental state, specific biochemistry, familial and medical health histories, current eating habits, lifestyle and laboratory tests, providing you with specified, informed and evidence-based counsel.
Quite honestly, however (and fair enough to say), the fact that this process is not a mandatory part of physiological and psychological rehabilitation in traditional healthcare protocols, seems somewhat unethical – particularly given how far we’ve come in understanding the conditional relationship between nutrition, longevity, and recovery.
Clinical nutritionists are essentially concerned with how nutrients in food are processed, stored, and discarded by the body. We aim to maintain long-term and optimal health through individualized dietary strategies – it is really quite simple – and proven, time-and-time-again, that a healthy gut is a healthy brain.
So isn’t it just bizarre, that although the therapeutic efficacy of clinical nutrition is widely substantiated throughout its entire academic landscape, nutritional care is still scarce among public mental healthcare facilities, hospitals and ambulatory patients?
While there is no denying that nutritional care has gained broad clinical and scientific interest during the past decades, there still seems to be a clear lack of emphasis on the connection between food, mood and mental health, within conventional [medical] fields.
Now whinging aside – is there a simple solution?
I do believe so – to a large extent.
My personal answer, today – as I’m allowed to change my mind tomorrow if I’m proven wrong – is: education, specificity, and accessibility with flexible, long-term support.
And again, yes – this can, absolutely, be achieved at low cost.
First and foremost, I think that we should all know our needs: what our body and mind need to heal, operate and perform, optimally. The amount of free, peer-reviewed, and evidence-based nutritional studies that we have access to today is astonishing. It’ll only cost you time.
Say, google scholar is a good start.
Secondly, every dietary plan is specific – be that on account of hormonal care, dysbiosis, gut inflammation, surgical recovery, poor mental health or chronic illness – your plan should tailor your needs.
And lastly, long-term care does not mean long-term costs, but it does require discipline.
Origin Naturopathy is one of many practices with a one-off cost for long-term dietary support, offering medical-grade herbal extracts, prescriptions and clinical supplements.
If there’s one thing that High School Musical got right aside from Zac Efron’s shampoo, is that we’re all in this together [dad Joke #132].
Really, truly really really, let’s network – there are always people around us who can, most often, help if we only ask.
