Nutritionally complete disease-specific foods are also designed to be the sole source of nutrition but are manufactured for specific groups of patients with a particular disease, e.g. patients with renal disease, the critically ill (intensive care), respiratory disease etc. These patients require a diet that is modified to provide an increase, a reduction or an absence of a specific nutrient or group of nutrients from their diet. The level of one or more nutrients is modified from the standard formulation to reflect the specific requirements of the patients' disease.

Whilst nutritionally complete standard and disease-specific foods are designed to be used as the sole source of nutrition they can also be used as a partial source of nutrition for some patients.