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Dietary nutrition
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025

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Dietary nutrition - this concept carries not only the definition of diet numbers and a list of permitted products for a particular disease, but rather it is the formulation of a whole layer of preventive measures and means aimed at maintaining the health and quality of life of people. Actually, the translation of the word "diet" from Greek means precisely a way of life, that is, a set of rules, principles and habits that contribute to the normal functioning of all body systems.
Unfortunately, many of us begin to understand the phrase "dietary nutrition" only with age, when chronic diseases have already been acquired, a pathological "bouquet" located in the body. The reasons are known to everyone - lack of time resources to stop and think about what is consumed in unreasonable quantities, general environmental problems and, as a consequence, a shortage of normal, natural products, and much more. The result of illiterate nutrition are gastrointestinal problems at a minimum, excess weight and all associated pathologies, from cardiovascular to diabetes - at a maximum.
Dietary nutrition and diet
It would be more correct to consider a dietary ration in two vector directions. The first and main one is initially proper nutrition, which begins from the first days of a person's birth, that is, preventive. The second direction is part of therapeutic complex measures to restore health, shaken by illness. As a rule, any disease after drug therapy, the use of other methods and techniques of treatment, ends with the fact that a dietary diet is prescribed to consolidate the therapeutic result and prevent a relapse of the disease. In addition, there is a group of diseases that are controlled by a diet, which acts as an independent treatment method. This is due to the fact that food contains countless chemicals and compounds that directly affect the metabolism of the human body.
The norm of the diet or dose, regimen, frequency of food intake are developed at the state level, usually by ministries responsible for the health of the country. Different countries have their own specific features of the norm and set of products, depending on the territory, climate characteristics and cultural traditions. Nevertheless, the concept of dietary nutrition has some common parameters and features accepted throughout the world. It sounds like this:
The basis of a reasonable diet is the principle of rationality, which is measured by qualitative and quantitative parameters. Dietary nutrition should correspond to the physiological needs of the human body, fully replenishing its energy expenditure.
Thus, ideally, a diet is nothing more than a reasonable diet for a completely healthy person who strives to maintain a healthy state of the body as long as possible.
Dietary nutrition in the therapeutic aspect
What is dietary nutrition, if we consider this concept in the therapeutic aspect? In this vein, the diet is aimed at accelerating the recovery of a sick person. The main clinical functions of dietary nutrition are to support immune activity, to create maximum rest for the systems (primarily the digestive system), and to normalize body weight. A properly composed dietary nutrition helps to prolong the period of remission in case of a serious illness, and vice versa - a violation of the diet can provoke an exacerbation of the disease. Modern medicine, its scientific research and achievements in the field of biology, make it possible to use therapeutic nutrition sometimes on a par with drug therapy. Specialization in dietetics, which was recently considered something exotic, is becoming increasingly popular and in demand today. In the scientific world, the first "stars" of dietetics appeared quite a long time ago. One of the founders of the science of nutrition in the last century was the famous therapist, an excellent clinician M.I. Pevzner, who is credited with the famous statement: “If there is no therapeutic nutrition, there is no rational treatment.”
Basic rules that dietary nutrition implies.
- Elimination of certain foods and substances according to the clinical problem;
- Increasing the frequency of food intake (fractional intake);
- Some types of products must undergo specific technological processing;
- Compliance with the principle of diversity and completeness;
- Compliance with the principles of sparing - thermal, chemical and mechanical.
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Diet food: more about the rules
If a person suffers from diabetes, sugar and starchy foods are excluded from the menu, compensating them with sugar substitutes - sorbitol, xylitol. In case of diagnosed digestive diseases (gastroduodenitis, peptic ulcer), all products and substances with irritating properties (sour foods, spices, marinades, fried foods, etc.) are excluded.
Mechanical sparing is grinding and steaming of the products consumed. As a rule, mechanical sparing involves the use of products that do not contain plant fiber. Chemical sparing is the exclusion of spicy, salty, sour products from the diet or their limitation. Thermal sparing is the exclusion of dishes with contrasting temperatures (excessively hot or very cold food). If the basic rules of the therapeutic diet are followed, then a strict diet can become a temporary phenomenon in the patient's life, but a sparing diet should continue to be the norm and a mandatory condition.
Dietary nutrition becomes an almost ideal concept in the therapeutic sense if it can favorably influence the acid-base balance, motor, juice secretion, evacuation functions of the digestive system. And in the preventive sense, dietary nutrition can become one of the effective ways to maintain health.