Medical expert of the article
New publications
Perfect nutrition, elemental, parenteral nutrition
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
One of the ideas resulting from the theory of balanced nutrition is the creation of ideal food and ideal nutrition. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the basic concept of improving food and nutrition was outlined. So, already in the XIX century there was an idea about the formation of the most improved food due to the enrichment of food substances directly involved in the metabolism, and the discard of ballast substances.
[Elemental nutrition
The idea of creating the ideal, maximally useful food at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century was transformed into the idea of constructing a mixture of substances necessary for maintaining life and not requiring an optimal ratio, that is, the idea of creating so-called elemental or monomeric substances. The idea of elemental nutrition was that the oligo- and polymeric food we consume should be replaced by food consisting of elements participating in the metabolism. This food should consist of sets of amino acids, monosaccharides, fatty acids, vitamins, salts, etc. It was supposed that such food will satisfy the human needs in exact accordance with the peculiarities of its metabolism.
Parenteral nutrition
A consequence of the theory of balanced nutrition is the idea, formulated in a brilliant form in 1908 by P.-E.-M. Berthelot, that one of the main tasks of the twentieth century is the direct introduction of nutrients into the blood, bypassing the gastrointestinal tract. Currently, direct (intravascular or parenteral) nutrition has become a widespread and very effective means of direct introduction into the blood of nutrients, used in the treatment of various diseases for quite long periods of time. In particular, in the review of PS. Vasil'eva (1988) described a number of specialized mixtures used in clinical practice for parenteral nutrition and highlighted their positive role in the correction of various diseases (metabolic disorders, in particular protein, various injuries, including burns, disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, in particularly surgical interventions, oncological diseases, liver, kidney and others pathology.