New manual stresses nutrition in HIV treatment
And when it comes to health, experts have discovered that many of our problems can be avoided by taking better care of our bodies both before and after we get sick. Diet, as News 5’s Patrick Jones discovered, even plays an important part in the treatment of HIV and AIDS.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The ?Healthy Eating for Better Living? manual is a companion to a similar publication launched last year, designed to help people living with HIV/AIDS. Senior Public Health Nurse Dorla McKenzie says people who work with infected persons will use the book in their counselling sessions.
Dorla McKenzie, Senior Public Health Nurse
?This book will be used as a guideline to tell about the importance of nutrition. Nutrition is important in every disease and especially so in people who are living with HIV. We want to prolong their life, we want to prolong the stage between the infection and to full blown AIDS. And nutrition will help to prolong that time in eating the proper food; even after you get into the full blown AIDS.?
The book is being introduced to the nurses at a three-day intensive workshop which started today. Nutritionist with the Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute June Holdip says the publication takes into account cultural characteristics that are unique to the region.
June Holdip, Nutritionist, C.F.N.I.
?Generic to the Caribbean, because in developing the manual we did take that into consideration. But what you would find should also happen or can also happen thereafter is that countries may now be able to take this generic protocol so to speak and fine tune it to their country situation because of course, we are not able to include examples of every single country in the region. So that if they choose to go that route, then they would be able to bring examples that are closer to home to make it more relevant to their local situation.?
Holdip says the book also explains the process of nutritional care and the implications of certain anti-retroviral medications and what can be done to help to overcome the side effects. Patrick Jones, for News Five.
