Your diet (what you eat each day) can influence your health in many ways.  If you are an older person and/or have a respiratory condition, it is important you eat the right balance of foods to provide your body with the essential nutrients needed to maintain your health and wellbeing.  Not getting the right balance of nutrients in your diet can result in you becoming malnourished and can cause your health and lung function to decline more rapidly, causing you to become frail and reduce your quality of life.  

We offer consultations which include body composition assessment and muscle strength testing (to identify muscle loss).   We provide individualised, practical advice to help improve your diet and nutrition.  Consultations can be done via video call or in person  at our clinic located in St Ives, Cambridgeshire. We also perform home visits in and around the Cambridgeshire area.

Dietitians advise on ways to use food and nutrition to prevent or treat medical conditions

Dietitians interpret the science of food and nutrition. They do this by translating research into practical guidance to enable people to make appropriate lifestyle and food choices to improve their health.   

The term “Dietitian” is a protected professional title. Many people claim to be experts in nutrition but dietitians are the only regulated health professional qualified to assess, diagnose and treat dietary and nutritional problems. To practice in the UK, Dietitians must be registered with the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC).  The HCPC exists to protect the public and sets the standards of practice that dietitians and other health professions must follow. To continue to be registered with the HCPC, dietitians must meet standards of proficiency, conduct and continuing professional development.  This ensures patients and clients get the most appropriate and up-to-date, evidence-based information. The HCPC keeps a public register of healthcare professionals who are currently registered with them.  

Our dietitians are registered with the HCPC and follow the HCPC standards of proficiency and conduct. They also keep learning to keep their practice up to date and evidenced based. For further information visit the British Dietetic Association and Health Care Professions Council websites. 

If you have a respiratory condition, being malnourished can cause your health and lung function to worsen more rapidly.  The medical management of your respiratory condition should include consideration of your nutritional status.  Your GP or specialist team should regularly perform nutrition screening to check if you are malnourished.  This often involves checking your height, weight, BMI (Body Mass Index) and asking about any recent, unintentional weight loss.

If your appetite is poor, you have a low BMI or recent or ongoing unintentional weight loss, you may be malnourished.   Nutritional screening does not always identify muscle loss which is often associated with lung conditions.  If you have noticed the size of your muscles or strength reducing and are becoming frail, it could be because your diet is inadequate and you are becoming malnourished. This can happen even if you are not underweight (have a low BMI).

If you have any of these clinical signs of malnutrition you would benefit from seeing a dietitian for a nutritional assessment.  They can provide you with individualised dietary advice to help you improve your diet by adapting your eating patterns and food choices.  

Speak to your health professionals to discuss your concerns as they will be able to assess your risk of malnutrition and refer you to see a dietitian within the NHS.  Alternately you can book privately to see a dietitian by contacting us. Just click on ‘contact us’ at the bottom of the page and complete the contact form to get in touch.

For further explanations about BMI, nutrition screening, malnutrition and frailty see our ‘Learn More’ pages.

If you are not eating enough or your diet is not varied enough, you may not be getting all the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy.  Even if you are overweight or obese, you can still become malnourished if your diet is unbalanced and lacking in essential nutrients.  Malnutrition results in tiredness, low energy levels, reduced strength and feeling weak.  It impacts on health as it leads to frailty, causes lung function to worsen more rapidly and increases the risk of illness and infection.  It also increases the time it takes to recover from illness.  For more information see our learning page.

There is scientific evidence demonstrating how not getting enough of the essential nutrients affects mental wellbeing.  Thus malnutrition can have serious adverse effects on health, wellbeing, and ability to function, which can further influence ability to prepare meals, food choices and nutrient intakes.

Respiratory conditions can negatively impact on diet and nutrition in many ways.  Being unwell can affect appetite and increase the body’s demand for certain nutrients; symptoms such as breathlessness can make eating and swallowing more difficult; side effects of important medications can reduce appetite and food intake. Additionally, frequent or long periods of illness with or without the need for admission to hospital can all combine to considerably increase the risk of becoming malnourished.  

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”

Hippocrates 310 BC