Hi Erika, I assume you are referring to substance abuse? When I worked in the hospital detox and residential treatment program, most of our patients were malnurished. That is where a nutritionist comes in. For people like me whose drug is food, they have many skills, options and strategies to help heal the addiction. A lot of obese people can be malnurished if they mostly have eaten junk food. For me, I lost 200# by eating only 700-800 calories per day for about 2.5 years which is impossible to get adequate nutrition from. Also, I only just learned that low calorie diets contribute to osteoporosis. I have "severe" osteoporosis and have broken some bones among which but not limited to 3 pelvic, one rib, etc. spontaneously. I also have taken daily Prednison for 23 years and a lot of IV and by mouth steroids before daily to manage lung disease and auto-immune inflammatory disease. So all of that contributed to my osteoporosis.

So patients can have many different types of health problems they don't even know about by eating a diet void of proper nutrition. The nutritionists work w/ the patient's PCP and can facilitate the right blood work to be done to help assess the areas the nutritionist can focus on and treat with diet.They are trained in some behavioral aka addition therapy.

Hope that helps? Take care Erika. Warmest regards, Sunny