A study which focuses on the nutritional management of individuals or group of individuals who established a certain disease or have a condition is known as clinical nutrition. It deals with altered nutritional requirements associated with the disease, disease severity and body’s current requirements of nutrition.
Clinical nutrition promotes a balanced segment of diet vital for the body and the main aim of clinical nutrition is to:
Maintain good nutritional status in the body
Improve or correct deficiencies or diseases, if any,
Provide the rest to the body and give it time to heal
Help metabolize the nutrients, and
Make changes in body weight, when crucial.
Diet therapy may include prescribing altered and specialized dietary meal plans and these specialized meal plans are called therapeutic diets. A certain meal plan that controls the intake of particular food items and nutritional portions refers to a therapeutic diet.
The therapeutic diet plan includes a clear liquid diet, diabetic diet, renal diet, gluten-free diet, low-fat diet, high fiber diet, etc. Depending upon the nature of the problem, injury or disease a health care team might include physician/doctor, nutritionist, dieticians who can help plan such diet plans according to the needs of the patient.
Reasons for modifying diets are as follow:
For essential or life-saving treatment- for example in heart-related conditions giving low salt diet plans, etc.
To nourish patients who are malnourished- patients already having low resistance and immunity might need special protein and fiber-rich diet to fight their new illness.
To minimize or cure deficiencies and restore optimal nutritional status,
To provide rest or relieve an affected organ
To increase or decrease body weight composition of the patient when required such as for patients having knee and backbone pain might require to lose weight to relieve their bones from the extra fat weight.
As a helpful treatment, alternative or complementary to drugs for instance in diabetes, or in hypertension
Hence, the significance of clinical and therapeutic diet is that it helps in managing the condition of the patient as it promotes resistance to disease and is preventive or supplemental treatment.
