The FDA defines medical food as one that is developed to be administered or consumed entirely under the constant monitoring of a medical professional. It’s for the unique dietary management of a condition or disease that demands special nutritional requirements based on recognized scientific facts by medical evaluation.
It is not the same as your doctor, who suggests you to consume less fatty food and include more vegetables in your daily diet. For example, medical foods like the physicians elemental diet are clinically approved to support the nutritional needs of people with gastrointestinal conditions like irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn’s disease.This article will dive deeper into the realm of medical food and elemental diet:
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What Exactly is Elemental Diet and Nutrition?
The elemental diet and nutrition is a meal replacement in a powder form that provides all the necessary nutrition in the most “elemental” form possible. Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are broken down into short-chain maltodextrins, amino acids, and short-chain triglycerides, basically into their simpler forms for ease of digestion. This mix also contains vitamins and minerals such as zinc, copper, and magnesium.
Medical doctors usually suggest it for people who suffer from severe digestive problems such as Crohn’s Disease or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).
How Does an Elemental Diet Work?
These meal replacements are easily assimilated in the upper digestive tract, leaving the majority of the digestive system to rest and heal from infection, trauma, or surgery. They help provide complete nutritional needs from the elemental food or partial nutrition with solid foods. The supervising doctor or registered dietician decides which condition needs what kind of elemental diet.
There are medically proven and effective elemental diets on the market.Patients can consume the elemental diet formula orally or via a feeding tube if the patient can’t ingest food naturally.
Do You Need to Consult a Doctor Before Switching to Elemental Diets or Other Medical Foods?
Absolutely. According to FDA guidelines, medical foods and elemental diet consumption are permissible only if you are under medical care and it is a treatment for that ailment. Your medical professional will provide instructions and give you the directions you need to follow to consume medical food. While a prescription is not necessary, the FDA and Orphan Drug Act expect that you will consult your medical practitioner frequently and that a general practitioner will monitor your disease.
Uses of Elemental Diet and Medical Food:
Irritable Bowel Syndrome: (IBS) is a very common disorder affecting the large intestines in the body. It is a functional gastrointestinal disorder that causes various symptoms like cramps, abdominal pain, gas, bloating, diarrhea or constipation.
According to published clinical investigations, elemental diets have shown to be helpful in the nutritional therapy of individuals with severe to moderate GI dysfunction. For example, 80% of the individuals with IBS and irregular lactulose breath test scores who had physicians’ elemental diet had normal test scores and a reduction in clinical symptoms within 14 days.
Medically approved elemental diets can also help with IBD management. In a clinical trial of Crohn’s disease patients, 71% of the participants witnessed clinical remission in four weeks when they consumed only a specially designed medical food.
What More Do You Need to Know About Medical Food and Elemental Diets?
The FDA examines various features of medicinal foods like physicians’ elemental diet for consumer protection in the United States. The FDA requires that any entity that processes, packs, or holds medical foods register. A compliance procedure exists through site visits to establishments to guarantee acceptable production and control facilities for U.S. Produced foods.
All medical foods undergo various nutritional and microbial testing, including elemental diets. Specific labeling regulations apply to medical foods such as a thorough description of all constituents and ingredients.