Dietary Modifications in Critically‐Ill Patients: A Comparison of Persian Medicine and Conventional Medicine Perspectives

Abstract

In Persian Medicine (PM) literature, a crisis is the culmination of the body’s response to illness, which necessitates fundamental dietary modification to improve prognosis. In this narrative review, authentic PM textbooks as well as articles on diets for critically-ill patients (CIPs) obtained from PubMed and Google Scholar databases, were reviewed, and after gathering data, they were classified, coded, analyzed, and compared. In the acute phase, both PM and conventional medicine agree on relative food restriction, but PM lays a special focus on the use of meat in cases of weakness. There are both similarities and differences between PM and conventional medicine regarding nutritional recommendations in critical illness. For example, recommendations for food restriction and protein intake are similar in both schools, but recommendations for carbohydrate intake are different. The variables addressed and emphasized in PM require further evaluation in clinical trials.

Oxymel: A systematic review of preclinical and clinical studies

“…Medicinal oxymels find application in a broad range of disorders, including liver, spleen, gastrointestinal, and respiratory diseases [ 14 , 15 , 18 ]. Oxymels have been prescribed not only for chronic conditions but have also been frequently employed in the management of critically ill patients with acute diseases [ 31 ]. For instance, the Canon of Medicine mentions the use of oxymel in the treatment of febrile illnesses and critically ill patients who are on the verge of the critical stage of the disease [ 18 , 32 , 33 ].…”