Why do doctors get so little nutrition education?

(Alec) #1

We are often told that doctors get very little nutritional education (eg the number 4hrs is often quoted), but why is this? Is it that the medical curriculum makers just don’t think it is important enough to warrant any more time, or is there some professional niceties between the doctors and the dieticians? Or some other reason? Any ideas?

(Allie) #2

I’m guessing because they don’t realise how important nutrition is with regard to health. So many people see nutrition and medicine as totally separate things, so doctors do medicine, and nutritionists do nutrition. Not enough focus on the whole person.

#4

Warning: This may slip a little on the conspiratorial side, so take it with a pinch of salt. (yes, pinch, and figuratively or literally, we know it’s good for you :grin:)

I’ve often wondered how much the pharmaceutical industry influences medical education today.

When so much emphasis is placed on taking pills to treat your ills, how does that affect the direction of teaching?

(Alec) #5

Absolutely conspiratorial, and IMHO, highly likely. :+1::scream::rage::rage::rage:

(TJ Borden) #6

Conspiratorial? I thought that was already well established and widely known. There’s a reason modern medicine is all about treating symptoms and not fixing causes. Outside of antibiotics, most prescriptions are given with no plan to work towards stopping them.

#7

Oh, for sure! Doctors are PAID to push drugs! Ever been in a Dr’s office when a Pharma rep shows up? They are immediately ushered in to meet the doc ahead of the scheduled patients. And the bags of samples they leave w/ the Dr, so the Dr can push them on his/her patients and then prescribe them. Sheesh! When I worked in a hospital, it seemed every Tuesday there was a Pharma display in the hallway leading to the lobby, so that the docs would see it when they came in to make their rounds. :angry:

(Brian) #8

Doctors can’t control what you do or don’t eat. Most of the time, they have a hard time prying an accurate account of what their patients will admit to eating. What they can do is control the little pills that nearly every patient demands and will take religiously without a clue what’s in it. It’s easy.

#9

I agree completely with this, they simply do not see food as medicine.

A 50 mg pill can provide relief but the 2 lbs of food we consume a day cannot?

I cannot tell you how many times over the last 2 years when a family member has been sick, whether it is my parent, child or even a pet, I have asked about food and been given a very patronizing look. The worst was when my overweight 13 year old son had a stomach pain that would not go away and he could not eat (he is fine now) and his peditrician told me to give him sugared sodas and hot chocolate to keep his strength up! My son knew that was bad advice but who turns down coca cola when the doctor says you should have it?!

The ones who have not taken the time to become educated on their own still believe that all food is fine and makes no difference except saturated fat. Sugar is ok in limited quatities or in situtations like the one my kid was in

#10

@Baytowvin

I know I’m in good company, but I still try to play it safe. :wink:

#11

My understanding is that in many ways medical school is like the army, there is a chain of command and you do not question it. It was stated by a physician on one of the keto podcasts I listen to, don’t ask me where.

Plus the mindset is treatment, not prevention. Sure they suggest lifestyle changes but as Fung comments they are both bad and unsustainable

(Todd Allen) #12

John D. Rockefeller a baron of the fledgling pharmaceutical industry founded the General Education Board, a “philanthropic” non-profit, which influenced medical schools to focus on patented drugs. Nutrition and other factors that influence health have been lesser considerations ever since.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Education_Board
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report

(Alec) #13

You’re making me depressed. :cry:

#14

Everyone’s making good points, and I think that another factor is that our terrible dietary habits that lead to chronic metabolic diseases are relatively new. The topics historically considered relevant to the practice of medicine are much older than that. Food as a source of disease used to be limited to things like chronic nutrient deficiencies (like rickets, scurvy, etc) or food-borne infectious diseases (parasites, bacteria, etc.). The curriculum hasn’t caught up and it appears very few people realize it needs to be updated.

(Alec) #15

This sounds very likely, and I hadn’t thought of that. Our chronic diet driven diseases are relatively new. And it seems to me there are not many people who have a vested interest in making people eat healthily. Everyone seems to have a vested interest in illness. Apart from us dopey consumers. And on average, we are dopey. Literally.

#16

Yup. :frowning_face: And it’s a terrible excuse anyway because when there is a demonstrable, effective course of treatment or prevention of a disease, there’s just no excuse for the medical community to ignore it. We’ve had a longer history with chronic metabolic disease (and compelling evidence that starches and sugars are the culprit) than we have had with Ebola, and they’re all over Ebola.

I’d add a laughing emoji but it’s just not that funny. Here, I’ll puke instead. :face_vomiting:

(Todd Allen) #17

Before the switch to focusing medicine on patented drugs there was widespread use of herbal medicines many of which are recognized today as having significant beneficial properties. Medicine also included practices like advising fasting and carbohydrate restriction which recent research indicates are potent tools for problems which modern medicine still struggles to effectively treat such as obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. That’s not to say there wasn’t a lot of quackery and snake oil but I’m not sure things are much better today with doctors commonly pushing drugs like statins with serious side effects after a single bad test result.

(Todd Allen) #18

This is a topic important to me because I went to a top rated university affiliated research hospital for 25 years because I have a supposedly untreatable genetic neuromuscular wasting disease, Kennedy’s disease, and pretty much all they did was measure and track my wasting and increasing disability to the point where I nearly lost my ability to walk at all and was very ripe for death by stroke and pneumonia. After I was able to start reading the research literature through sci-hub and library genesis I discovered there were a huge number of things found potentially beneficial and started trying them despite the warnings of my neurologist. And when I started getting better EMGs and PFTs and everything else it was considered a fluke with no interest in exploring my efforts to see if they could be applicable to others. And I’ve found that others have been likewise having individual success with similar approaches to diseases such as MS, Parkinson, Alzheimer’s, etc. but are also struggling to get the word out to an uninterested medical community, a mostly uninterested research community and a public well taught to ignore anecdotes and place their trust in corporations.

#19

This makes me want to puke again. It’s inexcusable.

(Alec) #20

Now I’m really depressed. :rofl::rofl:

But it sounds all too true. Good on you for finding some truths and just DIYing it. :clap::clap:

I have to say, I am learning some serious lessons here that if and when I get any serious disease or medical problem, I ain’t gonna be taking my Drs opinions as known truth… it seems this is not the way to health.

(Todd Allen) #21

I’m still super thankful for modern medicine. A year ago I had an inguinal hernia that after a couple months of waiting for surgery scheduling went critical and sent me to the emergency room. In a few hours I was patched up as good as new. For most of human history it would have been a painful ugly way to die.