AGA Community recently hosted a forum to discuss how dietitians and gastroenterologists can bridge the gap to help meet the nutritional needs of their patients. Moderated by registered dietitians Emily Haller, MS, RDN, and Kate Scarlata, RDN, LDN, Freston 2019 faculty collaborated with AGA members on opportunities to enhance patient care through a multi-disciplinary, shared decision-making approach. Topics included managing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), implementing a low FODMAP diet and screening for eating disorders. Read the full discussion on AGA Community.
Q: “What are your dietary management strategies in patients with NAFLD to achieve 10% loss of the total weight for improvement of liver inflammation?”
— Ome Perez Gutierrez, MD
A: “I find regular follow up with a focus on and discussion around changing behaviors over time to be effective. Reviewing nutrition, sleep, exercise, and mindfulness/stress reduction with the goal of creating sustainable health-promoting habits. One appointment is generally not enough and being told to change everything all at once is overwhelming.”
— Emily Haller, MS, RDN
Q: “In the average GI practice, what conditions are the lowest hanging fruit to push for nutrition as a 1st line therapy rather than mere complement to standard therapies?”
— Jordan Shapiro, MD
A: “I would first like to highlight that nutrition therapy is important for all of our patients with GI disorders and patients are best severed from a multidisciplinary, multi-treatment approach. I often use a pie analogy with my patients and discuss that there is a diet piece, medication piece, and psychosocial/mental health piece to their gut health/symptoms or their condition and these pieces of the pie are different sizes for everyone and can even change over time.”
— Emily Haller, MS, RDN
Continue the conversation at the 2019 James W. Freston Conference: Food at the Intersection of Gut Health and Disease, Aug. 9-10 in Chicago
