Understanding Healthy Eating and Nutrition

If anything, people with arthritis should eat a better balanced diet than people with normal health. In fact, if — for whatever reason — they can't eat the foods recommended by Canada's Food Guide as a minimum, a dietitian would undoubtedly recommend they take some sort of supplementation. What kind of supplement would depend on a number of variables: the kind of medications the patient is taking — keeping in mind possible drug-nutrient interactions — or the kinds of foods they've been excluding from their diet.

To determine your nutritional standing, a dietitian can do a diet test. Based on the results, if he or she believes you're missing out on essential nutritients, the chances are she'll recommend dietary changes — as against simply bulking up on supplements — because you get the best balance of nutrients from food, without putting yourself at risk of developing imbalances in your body and impairing the functions of different organs.

In her 1993 compendium, 'The Complete Canadian Health Guide,' June Engel, Ph.D., notes that, 'if food provides too little of any nutrient, the body cannot function properly. A lack of carbohydrate for fuel results in fatigue, poor mental and physical performance and ultimately starvation and death... [but nutrient] excesses can also undermine health. Too much vitamin A can cause nausea, headaches, irritability and skin and liver damage; excess vitamin D can damage brain, bone and liver function... Balance is the key.'

Any discussion of diet, nutrients, nutrition and drug-nutrient interactions can easily become hopelessly complex. Because it's involved in or with every metabolic function of the human body, the science of nutrition can make heart surgery look simple. On the other hand, if all you want is to grasp a few of the essentials — like learning to eat right — it's not so tough.

Nutrients, as the word suggests, are what nutrition is really about. Nutrients are the chemical components of foods that supply the raw material and energy needed in the process of assimilating food. The human body is a dynamic environment, engaged in a continual process of breaking down old cells and tissues and replacing them with new material. Red blood cells, for instance, get an overhaul about every four months, whereas collagen fibres in tendons may last 10 years. Regardless of tissue cycles, certain foods supply essential nutrients, which, in turn, help manufacture new cells and tissues, and provide the raw fuel required for the chemical processes involved.

Nutrients have a number of complex functions. Correspondingly, there are lots of them, more than 40, which fall into a half-dozen categories, including proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins and water. A relative proportion of each is essential to maintain good health.

This page was last reviewed/updated on : 02/23/2008