What is integrative nutrition?

Nutrition is an area of medicine that intends to improve the relationship between food and physical and emotional health.

Integrative nutrition aims to offer personalised nutrition and diet plans, as well as lifestyle changes for every patient to encourage them to achieve optimal health and improve their overall wellbeing. Integrative nutrition can also act as a healing-oriented treatment that takes into account the whole person to help combat and prevent chronic and metabolic illnesses.

What are the applications?

Physical and emotional stress, as well as living a busy lifestyle, can lead to poor overall health and even the development of some types of chronic disease. Therefore, integrative nutrition aims to restore a healthy balance of many aspects of life and according to individual circumstances, perhaps treat or prevent certain conditions.

In some cases, integrative nutrition can help to prevent some conditions from worsening or even reverse the severity of some illnesses, including:

• Muscle or joint pain
• Digestive, circulatory or fertility disorders
• Hypertension, also known as high blood pressure
• High cholesterol

In addition, integrative nutrition can help patients to manage conditions such as:

• Chronic fatigue
• Headaches and migraines
• Allergies
• Cancer
• Anxiety and depression

What does it involve?

Integrative nutrition takes on a holistic and integral approach. A specialist will assess the individual to understand exactly what minerals and nutrients the patient will benefit from.

Integrative nutrition isn’t intended to replace traditional medicine but can be used in conjunction to support it. It should also be noted that biological food should be used which respects the entire cycle of food maturation and guarantees adequate levels of minerals and vitamins.

Preparation

This type of treatment is different for every patient and steers away from the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. Therefore, the first step is to have a personalised assessment done to fully understand the patient’s health needs. It is important to ensure that the patient has a high degree of awareness of their own health so that they can maintain a healthy lifestyle and fully benefit from the treatment.

The assessment analyses various aspects of the patient’s lifestyle, physical and emotional state, daily habits, diet, etc. Then from this, a nutrition and dietetics specialist will be able to plan a specific and personalised diet plan according to the needs of that person.