The practice of clinical nutrition consists of evaluating and optimizing an individual’s overall dietary patterns and specific nutrient needs.
Naturopathic doctors believe that diet and digestion are integral to health, healing, and disease prevention. The science of clinical nutrition involves the breakdown, absorption and transport, and utilization and storage of nutrients as well as elimination of waste. Clinical nutrition is not only an effective treatment option, but it can help to minimize the side effects that can occur with other types of interventions.
During your appointment at the Boucher Naturopathic Medical Clinic (BNMC), an intern and doctor will investigate your diet, lifestyle, and related causes of ill health.
Attention is given to the biochemical workings of single nutrients and the effect they have on your body. As crucial is the naturopathic doctor’s examination of the role of whole foods, with their complex set of interacting constituents, in health promotion.
In naturopathic medicine, nutrition is viewed through the lens of the other therapeutic modalities such as botanical medicine and physical medicine. The importance of this outlook stems from the fact that nutrition is foundational to health; diet, digestion, and elimination have an impact on and are impacted by other treatments. Appropriate dietary changes can also lessen the need for other medicines or increase the effectiveness of combined treatments.
Clinical nutrition is more than just taking supplements. First and foremost, naturopathic doctors assess their patient’s diet; the understanding being that many chronic health conditions are related to long term nutritional deficiencies. Although supplementation can help us to correct these imbalances, the right changes made to the actual intake of food is essential.
We recognize that supplementation of substances such as minerals and vitamins is important for increasing levels of deficient nutrients.
As significantly, modern clinical nutrition has demonstrated through research and practice that specific nutrients and foods can have additional therapeutic effects; these basic and inherently safe interventions positively impact health to a greater degree than what we would expect through simply correcting deficiency.
Detoxification and the removal of toxic barriers in the body are related to nutrition as well. Working on these aspects through diet modification and nutrient supplementation allow us to optimize the basic but vital bodily functions of digestion, absorption, metabolism, and elimination.
Nutritional therapies have excellent safety profiles – the most common side effects of treatment are having more energy, fewer cravings, better mood and concentration, and less aches and pains.