“Most deaths are preventable, and they are related to what we eat. Our diet is the number-one cause of premature death and the number-one cause of disability. Surely, diet must also be the number-one thing taught in medical schools, right? Sadly, it’s not. According to the most recent national survey, only a quarter of medical schools offer a single course in nutrition, down from 37 percent thirty years ago. While most of the public evidently considers doctors to be “very credible” sources of nutrition information, six out of seven graduating doctors surveyed felt physicians were inadequately trained to counsel patients about their diets. One study found that people off the street sometimes know more about basic nutrition than their doctors, concluding “physicians should be more knowledgeable about nutrition than their patients, but these results suggest that this is not necessarily true.”
This is a paragraph for a book called “How Not To Die” written by an American physician. Most facts that are said in this book is very shocking. What you guys think about this, Lack of nutritional knowledge among treating people? Less time allocated for nutrition in academics? Do you also see this?
A doctor a day may keep the apples away. Back in 1903, Thomas Edison predicted that the “doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of (the) human frame in diet and in the cause and prevention of diseases.” Sadly, all it takes is a few minutes watching pharmaceutical ads on television imploring viewers to “ask your doctor” about this or that drug to know that Edison’s prediction hasn’t come true. A study of thousands of patient visits found that the average length of time primary-care doctors spend talking about nutrition is about ten seconds!!
I truly believe that whatever you have mentioned here is absolutely correct. Every medical professional must have knowledge about the nutrition as it plays an important role in maintaining the whole well being of all individuals.
Curriculum can be the main reason behind it but we can’t change it as of now. We can demand for it.
But, till then what’s the approach we can adapt is to do self learning on it as there are lot of options available on the internet.
I don’t have any referenced resources. I would be really glad to to have some resources if you have.
Nutrition as a subject is not taught in medical schools with proper emphasis and curriculum. Even in clinical practice, we see that when it comes to nutrition, it is delegated to the nutritionist.
Not defending it, though!
Doctors advice to maintain health by proper diet, regular sleep pattern, meditation, etc.
But doctors itself are backward in doing all this.
Most patients are referred to dietician for it.
I feel, doctors and nutritionists are very different jobs here in India. A nutritionist is paid very less as compared to a MBBS or MD. Doctors mostly prescribe pills and suggest the medical procedures and that has been their specialization since a long time. Doctors do talk about diet regimen to adopt for a particular concern, but they do not highlight it much considering the number of patients they have to attend in a day. Besides, importance of nutritionists is not known to people too and hardly people go to a nutritionist during any health issue. Both are two different areas and there are specialized people for it, that’s the reason doctors do not highlight about nutrition much. Besides, as people are also not interested in taking care of their diet much, the demand of nutritionists is very less here in India. Mostly celebrities prefer them, as their job demands to look fit and common mass mostly go to them when they want to reduce weight to look good. So this itself talks about the mindset common mass has towards rectification in a diet pattern, as most look for pills for immediate outcome. More than doctors, nutrionists have more specialized knowledge about the diet and disease connection.