What is a Clinical Nutritionist?
A clinical nutritionist takes a holistic approach to your health by looking at the effects of nutritional, environmental, physical, spiritual and emotional factors. A clinical nutritionist will implement individualised treatment plans and short and long-term strategies with a thorough assessment of diet and dietary behaviours, food quality and lifestyle factors while utilising both traditional food wisdom as well as evidence based practice.
Nutritional medicine not only looks to address the symptoms you may have, but to delve deeper into the underlying cause/s of those symptoms – and diet is often a major factor which can be overlooked in today’s medicine. With chronic disease on the rise, and a high number of these diseases being diet related, a clinical nutritionist will address a person’s risk factors to either a) prevent disease from occurring or b) aid in the management and improvement of these diseases. Nutritional medicine is a complementary treatment which can work well alongside conventional medical treatments.
A clinical nutritionist can often be confused with other similar professions – such as dieticians or naturopaths – and yet a clinical nutritionist is neither of those. Nutritional Medicine is a somewhat new field within the complementary health field in which to be accredited you need to complete a 3-year full time degree in Nutritional Medicine, become an accredited member of an association and continued professional education whilst practicing. Initial appointments are 1 hour long in which a detailed medical history will be taken (including looking at any previous test results) and an individualised treatment plan given which will include dietary prescriptions and, where warranted – supplemental prescriptions or functional testing may be requested.
Who can benefit from a Clinical Nutritionist?
A clinical nutritionist can assist in a wide array of chronic and acute conditions, including, but not limited to:
- Gut issues: IBS, SIBO, pathogenic infections (such as fungal/parasitic/bacterial), inflammatory bowel disease, other gut issues
- Autoimmune Conditions
- PCOS & other hormonal imbalances
- Weight loss
- Chronic Pain
- Pregnancy and kid’s nutrition
- Thyroid disorders
- High blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar
- Anxiety and Depression
