The Foundations of Health
As Nutritional Therapy Practitioners (NTP), we seek to support our client’s health by optimizing the function of what we call the six foundations of health: a nutrient-dense diet, digestion and elimination, blood sugar regulation, fatty acid balance, mineral balance, and proper hydration. We do not diagnose or treat disease; instead, we look at the whole person and think critically about how, for example, supporting one’s ability to deal with stress efficiently may improve digestion, blood sugar, and mineral balance. We equip our clients to take an active role in their health through a combination of diet, lifestyle, and, when appropriate, targeted supplementation. Let’s take a closer look at each foundation and unpack how they work together to support our health.
The Importance of a Nutrient-Dense Diet:
Eating a diet rich in foods that contain high amounts of nutrients underlies every foundation we will discuss. Food provides our body with the needed elements to build new tissues, organs, and hormones, create and store energy, manage inflammation, and balance blood sugar. We commonly call these nutrients macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients consist of water, carbohydrates, fats, and protein, and we need these in relatively large quantities. Micronutrients are required in smaller amounts and consist of vitamins and minerals. Our goal is to assist clients in finding the right balance of nutrients that works best for their needs. Feeding our bodies what they need will allow every cell, tissue, organ, and system to function optimally.
What makes food nutrient-dense? Most of us know that our food quality has decreased with the increase of processed foods, commercial farming practices, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides on crops. These harmful substances have led to the depletion of vitamins and minerals in our soil and food and an increase in chronic health problems. For this reason, as NTPs, we seek to educate each client on how to prioritize eating a variety of whole, minimally processed foods mirroring the more traditional diets consumed by our ancestors. By feeding our body the most bioavailable nutrients, we support healthy digestive function, mood, and so much more!
Digestion:
Our digestive system operates like a superhighway, ushering food in, breaking it down, and assimilating nutrients that nourish every cell in our body. The food we eat provides our body with the building material required to construct new tissue, hormones, and enzymes and create energy. This system is a north-to-south process beginning in our brain and continuing through our large intestine. By supporting this system, we can start using all the nutrient-dense foods we worked hard to prioritize in our diet.
As discussed earlier, eating a balance of quality fats, proteins, and carbohydrates that contain vitamins and minerals is a great place to begin, but we can’t stop there. Things like stress, how we think about our food, how we chew our food, and the quality of our sleep significantly impact our entire digestive system (Harvard Health, 2023). When we take the time to sit down and savor each bite, we promote a cascade of hormones, digestive enzymes, and gastric juices needed to break down and absorb our food. What we eat matters, but only insofar as we can digest and use it.
Blood Sugar Regulation:
Building on the foundations that have come before, we now look at how blood sugar regulation is critical to supporting our health and function. Our body requires the right amount of blood sugar, known as glucose, in our bloodstream to maintain optimal energy production. When we are under chronic stress, constantly on the go, and eating a diet rich in highly palatable foods, we may experience rapid fluctuations between high and low blood sugar that will send our body into a state of emergency. In response to this emergency, our brain triggers the release of what is commonly known as our stress hormones that help fuel this state of fight or flight (Harvard Medical School, 2018). These spikes and drops in blood sugar often drive our cravings for sugar and refined carbohydrates because our body knows we need energy, and we need it fast! Although these mechanisms may be sufficient in the short term, chronically, this will only perpetuate this dysregulated cycle and lead to systemic problems like brain fog, sleep, and mood disorders.
Many of us think it’s normal to experience mood changes when meals are delayed and to rely on caffeine to carry us through the afternoon. Although this may be common, it is far from optimal. Through a whole-food diet and lifestyle techniques that reduce stress and facilitate movement, we can begin fueling our bodies to sustain our energy and mood throughout the day.
Fatty Acids:
Fatty acid deficiency has become so prevalent today, largely due to the message that fat is bad for us. For this reason, many people have removed fat entirely and are substituting it with hydrogenated seed oils or fat-free alternatives. Fatty acids are derived from foods we eat that contain fat. We need a variety of them, but two are essential, meaning we cannot make them in our bodies, so we must eat them in our diet. They are linoleic acid (LA), a type of omega-6 fatty acid, and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), a type of omega-3 fatty acid. All other fatty acids can be made from these, and together, they help us regulate our inflammatory process and promote wound healing (Di Pasquale M. G., 2009).
Sadly, most of us consume large amounts of omega-6 oils compared to omega-3s, and this is primarily because most packaged and processed foods contain seed oils that are high in omega-6s. We need both of these in balance and preferably from whole food sources to support our immune, endocrine, skin, joint, and cardiovascular health. For this reason, we encourage our clients to include whole food forms of fat to ensure they are getting a better ratio of essential fatty acids, which include meat, organs, fish, butter, olive oil, avocados, nuts, and seeds. Consuming a variety of these fats and promoting the ability to digest them will allow our body to absorb fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K, build healthy cells and hormones, and support energy and mood.
Mineral Balance:
Minerals are nutrients derived from the ash of plants and animals commonly found in our soil. Whole foods contain minerals like magnesium, zinc, iron, iodine, potassium, calcium, sodium, and phosphorus, among others. Most Americans today are mineral deficient due to soil depletion, chronically stressed lifestyles, and, once again, diets high in processed foods. Like the essential fatty acids we discussed earlier, we must ensure we get minerals in our food as we cannot manufacture them alone. Out of all the minerals we need, calcium is the most important in our body as it forms a large part of our skeleton and impacts nutrient absorption across cell membranes. Without adequate calcium absorption, we will begin to experience widespread nutrient deficiency and, as we age, increase our risk of developing conditions like osteoporosis (Calcium Fact Sheet, 2024).
Now, we come back to the idea that each foundation is interdependent on the others. We must have a functioning digestive system and adequate hydration to produce the amount of stomach acid required to cleave calcium from our food. Furthermore, we need the right balance of nutrients, like fatty acids that make up every cell membrane in our body, to receive calcium and other nutrients into our cells. As we support these foundations along with other lifestyle factors, we can use these minerals to regulate hormone production, contract and relax our muscles, and give us strong structural support.
Hydration:
Adequate hydration is essential for all foundations, and this is especially true for mineral balance. We need the right combination of minerals in our food and water in order to absorb water effectively. Water is considered the most essential nutrient in the human body, comprising roughly 55-60% of our total body mass (Zhang, J et al., 2021). Hydration, like all other foundations, requires a bio-individual approach; factors such as climate, activity level, and age all influence the appropriate water intake for a given individual.
Water is abundant in many beverages and whole foods like green leafy vegetables and fruits. Unfortunately, most Americans are eating less and less fresh foods and are living in a constant state of rush that creates a dependence on caffeinated beverages that ultimately leads to a state of chronic dehydration. Dehydration can manifest in symptoms like fatigue, anxiety, headaches, constipation, heartburn, and exercise asthma, to name a few. Therefore, helping our clients determine the amount of water needed to meet their unique lifestyle demands is a primary goal. With the proper intake of water, we can support the digestion of our food, the metabolism of our blood sugar, and the regulation of our stress response.
In Conclusion:
As we see throughout each foundation, it is important to care for our entire being: body, mind, and soul. We do this through a nourishing diet and lifestyle that enriches our plate as well as our lives. The way we engage with the world around us, respond to stress, and build our schedules impacts everything from our digestion to our endocrine system. If you feel discouraged by symptoms of depression, anxiety, bloating, and chronic constipation, there is hope for you! Our bodies are created to heal; we need the right ingredients to reinforce this innate design.
References:
The gut-brain connection. Harvard Health. (2023, July 18). https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/the-gut-brain-connection
Harvard Medical School. (2018). Understanding the stress response: Chronic activation of this survival mechanism impairs health. hdps://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response
Di Pasquale M. G. (2009). The essentials of essential fatty acids. Journal of dietary supplements, 6(2), 143–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/19390210902861841
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2024, January 3). Calcium. NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Calcium-HealthProfessional/
Zhang, J., Zhang, N., Du, S., Liu, S., & Ma, G. (2021). Effects of Water Restriction and Water Replenishment on the Content of Body Water with Bioelectrical Impedance among Young Adults in Baoding, China: A Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). Nutrients, 13(2), 553. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7915432/
