Dietary Modification
The aim of dietary modification is to increase the supply of macronutrients and micronutrients provided through your diet, and to make them available in high enough amounts for your body to run optimally.
Your body is a self-healing entity that works tirelessly renewing and rebuilding itself through chemical reactions and biochemical pathways. These pathways require macronutrients which are carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and micronutrients which are vitamins and minerals. These nutrients are required in certain amounts to produce enough energy to heal and renew the body’s structures and biochemical pathways.
How Food Becomes Your Medicine
Hippocrates (400BC) who was considered to be the father of medicine, is famous for his quote “Let thy food be thy medicine”, emphasising the importance of nutrition to prevent disease.
Food can be medicine when it is natural and unprocessed like nature intended. Our body recognises natural foods and can absorb the nutrients with ease and use those nutrients in the body without causing harm.
Food can cause harm when it is processed and artificial. Our body cannot recognise it and therefore relies on stored nutrients to break down this unrecognised toxic load. This leaves your body in a negative nutrient balance causing inflammation and nutritional deficiencies which over time can lead to many health problems.
Furthermore, there have been many dietary fads some which have their benefits when used in the short term, but which can cause harm when used over the long term. Emerging research is showing that a diet high in protein and fat will increase bacterial species in the gut such as proteobacter and bacteroides species. These are gram negative and produce lipopolysaccharides (LPS) which are an endotoxin and associated with many health conditions such as:
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Headaches
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Post meal fatigue and fatigue in general
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Body aches and pain
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Brain fog
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Fatty liver
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Autoimmune conditions
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Metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, leptin resistance, diabetes type 2
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Alzheimer’s
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Colorectal and colon cancer
Healthy gut bacteria and diet go hand in hand to act as the best disease prevention strategy. We use diet to modulate gut bacteria with a well-balanced, gentle, nurturing, nourishing and scientific approach to food. Sometimes groups of food may be eliminated for specific reasons and only in the short term where possible. Nutritional therapy is introduced if necessary to bring about specific results.
A Wide Variety of Nourishing Wholefoods For Optimal Health
Eating a wide variety of good nourishing wholefoods is the best approach to increase nutrient intake and for a healthy diverse gut microbiome and this is what we support you to work toward.
Dietary modifications may include changes such as:
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The food you eat
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Macronutrient ratios
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The way you store and prepare food
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How you cook your food
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How you eat your food.
This is all aimed to increase the bioavailability of nutrients and micronutrients which will reduce deficiencies as well as increase the diversity of gut bacteria for a strong healthy immune system and body.
