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HEALTHY
EATING

Precision

Nutrition: "Let food be thy medicine,

and medicine be thy food."
– Hippocrates
The Merger of

Nutrition and

Medicine

By Tim Hlavinka, MD

It was the Spring semester of 1979 and I their physiology and impact on metabolism. stop at disease states and not approach healthy
needed another "hard science" class to fulfill Nutritional therapy at that time was directed eating and a healthy lifestyle. I propose that
medical school application requirements. I’d toward easily phenotyped diseases such as nutritional and dietary advice should be incor-
had enough of Organic and Biochem for one phenylketonuria, or classic deficiency states porated into all of our therapeutic interven-
pre-med lifetime, so I perused the class hand- such as pernicious anemia. It was fortuitous tions—this is not the future but the present.
book and stopped at Nutrition Science 101. to have that background knowledge in med The concept of Precision Nutrition has been
Why not? It qualified and I wanted to learn school as I went through Biochem and Phar- coined to designate the use of personalized nu-
about nutrition, as my career plan at that macology. In residency, nutritional advances tritional approaches for prevention and man-
time was to become a pediatric surgeon. I such as TPN and enteral feedings were being agement of disease. The discipline is in its
thoroughly enjoyed learning about calorie re- developed and I tackled those with alacrity. infancy. Much work remains to create an inte-
quirements and vitamins and minerals and Physicians' approach to nutrition seemed to grated, interdisciplinary framework that in-

16 SAN ANTONIO MEDICINE • May 2021