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Clinical Nutrition in New York

Clinical nutrition is the most scientifically researched form of alternative medicine. Supplementation with vitamins, minerals or other nutrients can be used to optimize biochemical reactions and to address both frank and functional nutritional deficiencies that negatively impact our health and well-being. Conventional and alternative medicine both agree that nutritional supplementation is a requisite treatment for frank nutritional deficiencies such as iron-deficient anemia, but alternative medical practitioners have also demonstrated that nutrition is a powerful tool in many types of chronic disease.

Taking nutritional supplements such as vitamins and minerals is not the same thing as taking medications. Pharmaceutical medications usually work by interfering with your internal chemistry. They are often described as anti- or as inhibitors or blockers (anti-inflammatory, for instance, or proton pump inhibitors or beta blockers). What this means is that these drugs essentially gum up the chemical machinery on the surfaces of your cells.

Nutritional supplements actually work in an opposite manner by supporting appropriate chemical interactions. Vitamins and minerals, for instance, act as co-factors in cellular chemical activities. This simply means that they encourage the optimal and healthy function of the chemical processes necessary for life. Other nutritional supplements, such as amino acids and essential fatty acids, provide building blocks for healthy tissues. Many nutritional supplements also act as anti-oxidants, protecting your cells from the deleterious byproducts of metabolism.