If our diet lacks a necessary nutrient or if we are regularly deficient in it, our metabolic processes slow down or even stop.
This is why health nutritionists have recently been recommending that we focus more on what foods to include in our diet than what foods to exclude.
Many scientists agree that diseases such as metabolic syndrome, obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, as well as some cancers, may be partly caused by nutrition, or rather by a series of disorders in the functioning of different organs and systems, which in turn is partly caused by nutrient deficiencies or imbalances.
To prevent the development of these diseases, we need to know how different nutrients interact with each other, what effect they have on different functions of our body and how they participate in the development of chronic diseases.
Functional medicine is the study of these issues. Specialists in this field of medicine do not focus on one specific organ, but on the functioning of the whole system and its interaction with other systems. For example, immune problems can be caused by disorders in the gastrointestinal tract, since 80% of the immune system is located there.
Another example is cardiovascular disease. Oxidative stress, high cholesterol or homocysteine levels, hypertension, stress, increased glucose tolerance, etc. contribute to their development. All of these factors can be influenced by nutrition.
For example, a 2007 study led by C.P. Newman showed the importance of optimal mineral balance and how micronutrient imbalances lead to the development of chronic heart failure.
A systemic approach
Until recently, nutritional recommendations centered around certain foods that supposedly have magical healing properties or, on the contrary, are terribly harmful. Even now, most publications in non-specialized literature, magazines, newspapers and the Internet contain advice to eat more of one or the other or to exclude the third from the diet.
But in recent years, research has increasingly uncovered the significance of the interactions between different nutrients and foods. For example, a 2007 study published in the journal Circulation found that it was the combination of fish, fruit and vegetables in the diet that had an effect on reducing the risk of blood clots, rather than each food individually.
In other words, it’s not so much specific foods that matter, but a person’s diet as a whole.
The Mediterranean diet is considered by experts to be one of the healthiest dietary systems in this respect.
