Eating a balanced diet which includes healthy, whole foods and staying hydrated, allows your body to feel energised and function properly in your day-to-day life. Nutrition is a three part process whereby food or drink is consumed, your body breaks down the food or drink into nutrients and the nutrients travel through your bloodstream to different parts of the body where they are used as "fuel". Discover our top tips for good nutrition and hydration:
Three facts about nutrition
1. Omega- fats are best for your heart health
Omega 3 fats are a group of unsaturated fats that we should be eating to nourish our heart.
Oily fish such as anchovies, mackerel, sardines and salmon are the best source of Omega 3 fats. It is suggested that we should aim to eat two portions (140g each) of fish per week and these can be from cans, frozen or fresh.
Plant foods such as green leafy vegetables, walnuts, flax seeds and oils like soya or pumpkin oil, all are high in omega 3.
In countries like Japan, Greenland and the Mediterranean, where people eat more oily fish, fewer people have heart disease. Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) are omega 3 fats that help protect the heart and blood vessels from disease. This is done by lowering your blood pressure, preventing blood clots, improving blood circulation, lowering triglycerides (a fat that enters our blood after a meal) and keeping your heart rhythm steady.
2. Unprocessed food is the healthiest
What is processed food? Processed food is any food that has been altered during preparation. This could be by freezing, baking, drying or drying. Processed foods include:
- Savoury snacks such as crisps, sausage rolls and pies
- Ready meals
- Breakfast cereals
- Meat products such as bacon, sausage and paté
- Cakes and biscuits
Ingredients such as salt, sugar and fat are sometimes added to processed foods to extend their shelf life or to enhance their flavour. Eating lots of processed foods can increase your intake of sugar, salt, calories and fat without you necessarily realising it.
Having unprocessed foods in your diet is a lot healthier for you because they are foods which are in their natural state without any added ingredients. Unprocessed (whole) foods include fruits and vegetables, and meat from ethically raised animals, all washed down with naturally sourced water.
3. Supplements can’t fully replace real food
The term 'nutritionism' is the idea that foods are just the sum of their nutrients. However, real foods are packed with a huge variety of trace nutrients. Keep this in mind next time you buy a multivitamin or a supplement because you are giving your body just a small part of the total amount of nutrients found in foods. If you’re suffering from a vitamin deficiency such as vitamin D or anaemia, taking a supplement each day will help with this. Overall, it is important you don’t count on supplements to provide the nutrients you need.
Mrs Abir Hamza-Goodacre, our Nutritionist at Benenden Hospital, has put together a variety of delicious, simple vegan recipes so mealtimes are healthy and stress-free. Discover our 10 easy vegan recipes for a healthier you.
Three facts about hydration
1. In 2020 the liquid intake of patients undergoing an operation was cut to one hour at Benenden Hospital.
Fluid is retained in the stomach for just 12 minutes and if a patient is dehydrated it can result in a dry mouth and more nausea, sickness and dizziness.
Previous fasting rules stated that patients should stop eating six hours before having a general anaesthetic or spinal block and stop drinking two hours before their procedure. Now, patients are allowed clear fluids such as juices, squashes, fruit teas and non-carbonated drinks an hour before their operation but not eating for six hours still stands.
Our hospital’s Anaesthetics & Recovery Clinical Lead, Simon Brooks said: “The happy hour as we have called it is going well. Some Anaesthetists let the patients drink clear fluid up to one hour before and some let the patients drink until they come down to theatres.
“We liaise with ward staff to ensure that patients have been given the opportunity to have their drink and so far, it’s worked really well. The rules for not eating are nationally accepted and research-based and it is not expected that these rules will change significantly.”
2. Adults should drink between 2.2 and 3 litres of water a day
The recommended daily intake of water differs from individuals depending on their age, gender, activities and the temperature. Children between the ages of four and 13 require 1 to 1.6 litres of water depending on age and gender.
For adults, men need approximately three litres of water while women require 2.2 litres a day. Men tend to have higher fat levels so need more water. If you’re pregnant, it is advised to drink 2.3 litres of water a day. This includes the daily recommended three glasses of milk or a calcium-rich soy drink.
If you exercise regularly, you should drink at least 2.7 litres of water daily as physical activity can cause a rapid drop in fluid levels through sweating.
3. There are specific times of the day that are best to hydrate yourself
To maximise the effectiveness of the water you should prioritise drinking at these times:
- Thirty minutes before eating a meal to aid your digestion and about an hour after eating to give your body time to absorb the food’s nutrients
- After waking up as this rehydrates you after sleep
- Before taking a bath as this can lower your blood pressure
- To manage dehydration as you sleep, you should drink water before going to bed
Overall, good hydration has many health benefits such as kickstarting your metabolism, raising your energy levels, aiding your digestive system and improving your skin.
Nutritional therapy service at Benenden Hospital
If you’re looking for help to change your diet, our team of specialist staff can help. Nutritional therapy can support you to adapt what you eat and drink in order to help you achieve your health and wellbeing goals. Hear more about our Nutritional therapy service from Mrs Abir Hamza-Goodacre.
So, from a digestive point of view, it's really important to have good gut health on a number of different levels. Number one, you know, how well do you digest your foods, the main macronutrients or food groups? What's the balance in the gut flora? What's your microbiome doing? Is it healthy? Is it not healthy? That is absolutely key. You're then looking at the metabolic function of the gut and how well that is doing, for example, in the production of vitamins and minerals and then also the body's ability, or the gut's ability, to manage inflammation, to manage pathogens coming in, including parasites. So there's many things that go on in the gut itself.
And then when it comes to the rest of the body, I mean, we know now that the health of the gut has an impact on the health of the mind as well. We now know that a number of mental health issues are also associated with poor gut health. Good gut health also impacts on inflammation generally within the body. You can even associate it to joint health, to cardiovascular health and more.
A patient might wish to visit a Nutritional Therapist or a Dietician at any point along their health journey. I mean, sometimes they will be given a diagnosis of an inflammatory bowel condition by their gastroenterologist. And the gastroenterologist has recommended that they go and see someone to discuss what kind of diet would be relevant to them. And I think that's the key, it's personalised to them. And that would be a good time to speak to someone like me, to make a plan moving forward to support them on their health journey.
Other people might not have a diagnosed condition. For example, it could be something like IBS, which is quite an umbrella term and it's not part of the inflammatory bowel diseases, but it's an irritable bowel syndrome which encompass a number of different symptoms. And the patient might have tried a number of different dietary interventions themselves and found some useful, but then getting a little bogged down in the weeds and not quite knowing where to go next. And that would be a good time to come to see a practitioner like myself. And there might be some people that just want to prevent gut issues because they have someone in their family that has issues with it, and they want to make sure that they are doing the best for themselves. So that would be another good time to come and speak to a Nutritional Therapist.
That's a really good question because there are a number of different ways to support your gut. Number one through your diet, and number two through some carefully selected probiotic and prebiotic supplements. Thing about a diet that's more wholesome, is that it will contain a lot more vegetables, a lot more nuts and seeds and grains, lower glycaemic index, grains and all of those foods kind of form what we know as the prebiotic foods for the gut flora to thrive. So you can think of the prebiotic foods as being the food for the probiotics, which is the live gut flora. Now, probiotics is a huge industry and there are lots of probiotic products out there. Some are very helpful for sure. And a number have had a lot of different types of research done on them and we know them to be very helpful in particular conditions in the gut.
I think it really depends on the individual as to which type of probiotic is relevant for them. And that is something that would go through in a consultation. There are a number of different factors that have an impact on the gut microbiome or the gut flora, that is all the bacteria that live in the gut, ideally in a healthy ecosystem. So that can be disrupted by medication. Many different types of medication can affect the gut flora. But one of the ones that we know most about is the antibiotics which, of course, kill bad things and that's why they are necessary, but they can also kill the good. So it's really important to replenish the gut flora after a course of antibiotics.
We also know that a poor diet has a really negative impact on the gut as well. So ultraprocessed foods really do have a negative impact. I mean, in part, they create inflammatory markers in the gut. But also many of these foods are devoid of fibre. And it's the very fibre that would be devoid in a diet that's highly processed. We also know that some environmental pollutants that come into the food chain as well can have a negative impact on the gut. And so it's important to look at that. And then also stress and poor sleep - and poor sleep is a form of stress in a way - that creates a whole cascade of reactions in the body that can have an impact on the gut.
And so it's really important to look at not just what's going in, but also the factors around your lifestyle that might be also having an impact on your gut. And I always urge people to take a look, like an inventory, of their life and see what they're doing every day that might be having a good or not so good impact on their gut.
During a nutrition appointment, I would ask the patient what they'd like to achieve. First of all from the appointment, and we put that into goals and those goals form the basis of the nutrition program that I would then email the patient afterwards. And so, during the consultation, we base it around all the health goals they want to achieve. And I will take a full case history, asking them questions about their background, about any illnesses, about medication, nutritional supplements and of course their diet. We then talk through the specific symptoms that they have, and I'll try and give explanations around that. I then also make recommendations on what they can do based on their lifestyle as well. It's got to be doable. It's all very well having an ideal plan, but if someone can't stick to it, then it's not going to work. So it's based on their life, and what they feel that they can achieve.
And then after the consultation, I email the program to them with any relevant documents. Sometimes there are carefully selected nutritional supplements like the probiotics we talked about, maybe some other things like vitamin D, some of the basic things that I would also recommend. Sometimes recipes and diet sheets as well. Just to help them along their way.
I do have patients that come to see me wanting to follow specific diets that they've either been asked to follow by their gastroenterologist or they've read about. For example, if someone has a coeliac diagnosis, they'll be wanting to follow a gluten free diet and I absolutely give advice on how they can do that in a way that is also a nourishing diet. So I certainly give advice on that. You might have a patient that has been diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome or IBS and they've been asked to follow a low FODMAP diet, as an example. And I will help them follow that as well. So I can give advice on all these diets which do have their benefits. I should also say that everyone is individual, and so apart from the coeliac, which really is 100% gluten free, I try and personalise the diets as well to make it relevant for that particular individual.
To access nutritional therapy consultations through Benenden Hospital, we encourage you to ring Private Patients to book your appointment.
Book your nutritional therapy consultation today
Nutrition and lifestyle can have a huge impact on your health and wellbeing, and our nutritional therapy service can help. Take the first step by booking your consultation online, by calling our Private Patients team on 01580 363158 or filling in our online enquiry form.
Published on 21 January 2025