| Nutrition Education |
In the early epidemic years, hospitalized
patients did not see a dietitian. From 1985 to 1990, patients rarely received
instructions on how to increase their food intake and avoid foodborne illness.
Very few dietitians began to educate patients to help them avoid harmful
alternative therapies and foodborne illness. Although the Centers for Disease
Control (CDC) offered a video and booklet on foodborne illness, few people
were aware of the educational tool. Some AIDS patients followed detrimental
diets such as macrobiotics. Most nutrition professionals having the opportunity
to see HIV-positive patients focused on getting them to eat frequent nutrient-dense
meals without regard to fat content, in fact, often encouraging it.
|
Few patients received information on dealing
with medication side-effects, food-borne illness and dietary supplements
during the early 1990s. Nutrient-dense meals, often high in fat, were considered
vital to avoid wasting. Post-HAART MNT in the late 1990s increasingly concentrated
on the medical consequences of HAART therapy that impacted on nutritional
status such as glucose abnormalities, hyperlipidemias, diabetes, heart
disease and bone disorders. An increasing number of nation-wide and patient-targeted
periodicals (mainly funded by pharmaceutical companies) included nutrition-related
articles. As the decade progressed, nutrition education sometimes included
information on the interaction of medications, herbs and dietary supplements,
and the nutritional effects of complementary therapies. Evidence
based counseling started to become an issue.
|
Nutrition education will continue to increase
and help more people living with HIV or AIDS maintain optimal nutritional
status and avoid unnecessary nutrient deficiency and secondary illness.
People will learn how to avoid food and water-borne illness and lessen
common body stresses such as alcohol and smoking. More consideration
will be given to patient lifestyles and eating habits prior to choosing
HAART regimens. Effective nutrition education will continue to help people
deal with medication side effects such as diarrhea, nausea, anorexia, glucose
abnormalities, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, heart disease and bone loss. Nutrition
education will also help more HIV-positive people to prevent chronic disease
and learn about the benefits and risks of exercise, dietary supplements
and complementary treatments. Clinicians will increasingly focus
nutrition education on cytochrome P450 liver enzymes and the interactions
between prescribed medications, food, herbs, dietary supplements and recreational
drugs.
|
