Top suggestions when spreading nutritional information
- Be mindful of what you are trying to communicate. Are you giving suggestions or strict rules? It is important to highlight these differences.
- Make sure the information you are spreading is certified. Googling something is not enough, work with specialists.
- Make it easy to understand and reach. Think about ways to present and distribute your info in the most accessible way to patients. Create website pages, provide nutrient content of food/recipes.
- Be positive about it. The best option you have to encourage other patients to adopt a diet from which they will benefit is to present it in a positive light.
What is nutritional management of disease?
Managing intake of different nutrients can be an important way to control or treat certain diseases. This mainly concerns diseases that affect metabolism – those that affect the reactions happening in our bodies that enable us to break down and build compounds. For such diseases, diets often have to be regulated to reduce or increase the amount of a problem compound in the body. This might mean inclusion/exclusions of specific foods or categories, which can lead to a very different regimen compared to commonly known diets, or healthy eating.
For example, patients with the inherited metabolic disorder Familial Hypercholesterolemia have an excessive build-up of LDL cholesterol in the blood, increasing risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and other potentially fatal conditions. As a consequence, they follow a diet designed to reduce LDL levels in their bloodstream.
Why is nutritional management important?
Rare metabolic diseases can deeply affect how certain aspects of metabolism work. Particularly when there are no treatments available, nutritional management can be a powerful weapon in helping patients manage their condition.
Although it can be difficult, it is very important to stick to diets if the condition benefits from it. They can be extremely impactful for certain diseases, allowing patients to manage symptoms and avoid serious health complications.