Managing Nutrients in Hepatic Diseases
Hepatic or liver disease is any of many diseases of the liver. It involves damage to the liver and inflammation of the liver cells.
The liver is the largest glandular organ and the second largest in the body. It supplies glucose to the brain, stores nutrients, and fights infections. The liver has a significant role in nutritional metabolism, including protein synthesis, detoxification, and glycogen storage.
Providing the required and adequate nutrition to a patient with a hepatic disease can be challenging; it requires close monitoring of the patient and observations. Their liver cannot store nutrients, resulting in various metabolic disorders and poor nutritional conditions. Therefore, managing nutrition and dietary counselling can be of enormous support to other medical treatments for some liver diseases by:
- Dietary counselling reduction in nutritional intake by metabolic surgery improves Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients.
- Recommending Patients with encephalopathy with a protein-restricted diet and increased fibre-rich vegetables to prevent constipation.
- Eating grapefruits that contain antioxidants reduces the development of hepatic fibrosis.
Managing Nutrients in Renal Diseases
Renal or kidney disease could mean one or both kidneys no longer function well. A condition in which the kidney cannot remove waste and extra water from the blood.
The global prevalence of chronic renal diseases keeps increasing with the ageing population. When kidney functions decline, it leads to an accumulation of metabolic waste products that can impair the health of a patient with renal disease. Such patients should be given uttermost care, especially as regards their diet. Nutritional management of patients with renal disease has been said to control uremic symptoms and provides advantageous effects on the progression of kidney dysfunction. Nutrients are managed by:
- Limiting salt intake is generally recommended.
- Appropriate dietary calcium intake to maintain calcium balance
- Eating the right amount and types of protein.
- Maintaining serum potassium levels by adjusting dietary potassium intake.
- Restricting dietary sodium which may decrease the progression of chronic kidney disease
- Adding cauliflower to your, which is a nutritious vegetable filled with nutrients like vitamin C, vitamin B and vitamin K.
Nutritional management of hepatic and renal disease promotes healing and regeneration and limits the impact of damaged nutrient metabolism. Individual strategy is also needed depending on the severity of the disease to ensure the best outcome. Proper elucidation of excessive nutrients through careful investigation leads to better nutrition management.
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