Nutrition and Healing, The Big Gap in Modern Medicine
By Eziah Zaidi-Syed, Co-Founder MEND
One of my friends had posted in her Facebook thread as she was lamenting the fact that an ill loved one hadn’t received proper nutritional care when in the hospital. It immediately resonated with me because I too have had the same experience. My mother was recovering from a full breast mastectomy and harsh chemo was offered no nutritional advice. Her recovery was slowed and arduous. When I had a stress fracture that was very slow to heal, I was offered no nutritional advice and my recovery was delayed compromising my quality of life.
Science has shown that nutrition is core to recovery from injury or surgery
The science and data on this topic is abundant, during any type of physical trauma, the body operates in a higher metabolic state and requires more energy and the key building blocks of repairing tissue. Some studies suggest that a person should be increasing their caloric intake and consuming key nutrients by as much as 50% during the acute phase of recovery. This is particularly critical if the personal is already malnourished or undernourished.
Many of us may think that just because we eat three meals a day we are fully nourished. Nothing could be further from the truth…the quality of your nutritional intake is far more important than the quantity. When we say malnourished it often conjures up images of emaciated people but this is misinformed — an obese person can be malnourished, and they often are. It is often completely invisible to the eye, a hidden epidemic.
The largest study to date finds malnutrition is rampant in hospitals
A study, which is the largest to date, was recently published in peer-reviewed Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, found that malnutrition in hospitals is rampant. Researchers surveyed nearly 10,000 patients from 245 U.S. hospitals and found that one in three hospitalized adults is at risk of malnutrition.
Being malnourished or undernourished can create a whole host of problems including increasing the risk of infection, delaying wound and tissue healing and making recovery slower and more filled with complications. Patients can die as a result of poor nutritional status.
Hospital staff may give patients a meal replacement drink just to increase their calories but sometimes these drinks are full of sugar and artificial ingredients. And you will often find that the food available in hospital cafeterias is not different than food available in any cafeteria across the country…not terribly healthy and certainly not optimized for healing, recovery and well being.
More advanced medicine but increasing disease and illness
We are living in a world with increasing complexity and increased sources of stressors and pollutants in our environment and food that are causing higher prevalence and rates of illness. Targeted nutritional care during illness is absolutely vital and it’s a missing piece in modern medicine. Doctors are beginning to take notice and are implementing sophisticated and more holistic strategies and we are thrilled to be working with them.
I’ve recently partnered with leading doctors, hospitals, dietitians, universities and scientists to solve this problem. Our company is called MEND and we exist to help people heal.
Hippocrates said long ago let food be thy medicine and he was well ahead of his time in his thinking. The undernourished/malnourished problem is an epidemic that needs to be solved and we are proud at MEND to be working on all natural clinically studied and efficacious products to help people to heal and have better outcomes from injury, surgery, illness or trauma.
Randomized trials on joint replacement surgery
For example we have recently released a specialized product called MEND Joint Replacement (www.mendjoint.com). This is for the million people per year (and growing) who are living with such severe impairment and pain in their joint that they have decided to have surgery. A significant proportion, according to some studies 70%+, of these people are undernourished or malnourished.
MEND Joint Replacement is based on three double blind placebo controlled randomized trials with leading orthopedic hospitals that shows convincingly that a patient taking our targeted natural nutrition product pre and post surgery will preserve more muscle mass and strength and have better functional scores and accelerated recovery. This simple targeted nutritional intervention gives them back months, perhaps years of higher quality of life.
It will help reduce complications, longer hospital stays and accelerate physical therapy — all of which should save the healthcare system significant dollars. Better patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs — isn’t that exactly what we should be striving for?
It’s such a safe and effective treatment that hopefully it will become standard practice. Clinical nutrition has become a very hot topic and we are already working with leading doctors and hospitals who have incorporated MEND into their protocols — they are highly motivated to utilize all of the latest tools to create better surgical results and patient outcomes.
Take care of yourself and your loved ones nutritionally when ill
If you or a loved one is injured or ill or hospitalized please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly about how to optimize their recovery. I will get you in touch with the best scientists on our advisory board to work with you one-on-one on a clinically efficacious nutrition support program that will improve recovery and enhance your long-term well-being.
Our mission and purpose to help people heal makes us feel really good and keeps us working very hard. You can learn more about our company here: www.mend.me
