Nutritional Therapy Practitioner

You may be asked to complete a questionnaire about your health and diet, how much you drink and smoke, your lifestyle and any medication you are taking. The practitioner will look at your skin, eyes and nails, and question you about your mood and stress levels. He or she may diagnose you through hair, urine or blood tests, applied kinesiology or a Vega machine.

You will be asked to exclude from your diet tea, coffee, alcohol, and chocolate, salt and salted foods, red meat, sugar and saturated fats. You may be placed on an elimination diet to pinpoint any food allergies. Using information gained through diagnosis, the practitioner will devise a treatment tailored to your needs. He or she may recommend a diet rich in a particular nutrient, which may be supplemented with doses of that nutrient in the form of capsules, powders or liquids.

In some cases nutritional therapists give injections of supplements. The main source of antioxidants is vitamin A or beta carotene that comes from carrots, spinach, broccoli and tomatoes. Vitamin C comes from citrus fruits, kiwi fruit, peas, potatoes, and green leafy vegetables. Vitamin E comes from wheat germ, nuts, green leafy vegetables, whole meal bread, vegetable oils, particularly sunflower and rapeseed, spinach and avocado.

Minerals come from selenium, zinc, copper, niacin, vitamin B1 and B12, folic acid, antithetic acid, magnesium and manganese, all found in fruit and vegetables, plus offal, wheat germ, whole meal bread, oily fish, dairy products. Fresh fruit and vegetables, whole meal bread, vegetable oils and oily fish are all sources of antioxidants, now considered an important part of a healthy diet.