Diet Therapeutic?

Ensuring that you have a healthy, balanced diet is an important step towards good health. Good health is essential for leading a full and active life.

The word ‘diet’ is often used to describe an eating plan that is intended to aid weight loss. However, diet really refers to the food that a person eats during the course of a day or a week. The more balanced and nutritious your diet is, the healthier you can expect to be.

Diet therapy is a broad term for the practical application of nutrition as a preventative or corrective treatment of disease. This usually involves the modification of an existing dietary lifestyle to promote optimum health. However, in some cases, an alternative dietary lifestyle plan may be developed for the purpose of eliminating certain foods in order to reclaim health. For example, the latter kind of diet therapy is often recommended for those who suffer from allergies, including those that are not food-related. Elimination diet therapy is often found to be helpful in improving symptoms associated with attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity in children.

THERAPEUTIC DIETS

 > High Fiber Diet 

   This diet emphasize the use of foods high in fiber such as whole-grain breads and cereals,fruits,vegetables,and legumes. High fiber diets are generally low in calories and fat while packed with vitamins and minerals,and other important protective substances. 

- Essential a regular diet, the high fiber regimen contains about 20-35 grams of dietary fiber (DF) per day. Consumption of higher than 50 grams has no additional benefit and may cause undesirable gastrointestinal side-effects. In children, age plus 5 grams of more of dietary fiber is suggested. 

- The purpose of the diet is to increase the weight of residue reaching the colon; to increase intestinal peristalsis, and decrease colonic pressure. 

- When introducing the diet, the different sources of the DF should be considered: 1 bran is an effective laxative to relieve constipation; 2 pectin has significant effect on serum lipids, blood sugar absorption, and diarrhea. High soluble fiber diets may lower cholesterol by 8% to 15%. 

- Insoluble fiber rovides texture to plant foods- fruits, vegetables, and cereals. Main action: it helps bind water in the intestine and makes larger volume of waste materials resulting in more frequently and softer bowel motions and less risk of constipation. 

Soluble fiber is found in all fruits, some cereals, and legumes. It traps fatty substances in the intestine and in that way helping to prevent their absorption. Likewise, it has also beneficial effects on blood sugar levels. 

When is it used?

- Cancer prevention: breast, prostate, colon, bladder, rectum, uterine lining

- Constipation

- Coronary heart disease

- Diabetes mellitus

- Diarrhea (more on soluble fiber)

- Diverticulosis

How adequate is the diet?

 High fiber diet is nutritionally adequate as long as a balance selection of food items is chosen. In general, fiber-rich diet is lower in energy density, often has a lower fat content, is larger in volume, and is richer in micronutritients. Diet may need to be supplemented when clients consume insufficient amount of foods. 

HIGH FIBER DIET: Contraindications

 When stenosis, obstruction or narrowing of the intestinal lumen is present.

Comment: Fiber is a natural part pf plant products that is not digested in the body and stays in the intestine. It is this resistance that makes these fibers important in both the normal functioning and in the disorders of the colon; the term "residue" refers to unabsorbed components of food, sloughed cells from the digestive system and intestinal bacteria found in feces after digestive.

HIGH FIBER DIET: Implementation 

  Avoid increasing fiber intake too quickly because it may result into:

- Excessive gas formation (flatulence) and bloating;

- Abdominal pain and sometimes diarrhea;

- Decrease in absorption of zinc, iron, copper, magnesium, calcium, protein, and pyridoxine.

- Water-soluble fibers (found in apples, citrus fruits, strawberries, oatmeal, and dried beans) do not affect mineral absorption as much as cellulose and bran (found mainly in whole-wheat products, root vegetables, cabbage family, and mature vegetables).

Note: These side effects can usually be minimized if fiber is introduced into the diet in small amounts with divided does. Plenty of water is also important. 

Suggested Meal Plan

 Same as the regular diet but with additional servings of fruits, vegetables, and substitution of refined carbohydrates with whole grains.