The use of diet to repair flaws in the body’s response to disease. Nutritional medicine derives from the belief that all disease stems from a failure of the body to respond adequately to ward off outside forces. To correct this failure, nutritional medicine may use vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, herbal medicine and other nutritive elements to strengthen the body. A goal of nutritional medicine is to fortify and restore the immune system to achieve optimum health. Advocates of nutritional medicine believe that by achieving optimum health, degenerative diseases associated with aging such as hypertension, arthritis, diabetes mellitus (type 2), and heart disease, can be delayed or avoided.