Role of nutrition in the dental practice.

The current climate of health care delivery emphasizes comprehensive care, with an increased focus on early detection of health risk, disease prevention, and health promotion with referral to specialty providers as needed. The integration of nutrition screening, basic diet education/counseling, and referral in dental practice fits with this climate. Shifting patterns in disease epidemiology, the advent of new therapies and drugs which impact nutrition and oral health status, and greater recognition of the relationship between nutrition and oral health provides dietetics and dental professionals with increasing opportunities to create a new oral health care paradigm. This integration of oral and nutrition health care will yield improved oral, nutritional, and systemic health status.