How Much Do Doctors Learn About Nutrition?

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that diet plays a starring role in preventing and treating certain chronic diseases.  And physicians are often on the frontlines of counseling patients about how their diets and other lifestyle habits can affect their health and weight – a reality that has gained added importance given the obesity epidemic. And yet, it turns out that only 29 percent of U.S. medical schools offer med students the recommended 25 hours of nutrition education, according to a 2015 report in the Journal of Biomedical Education.

On average, U.S. medical schools offer only 19.6 hours of nutrition education across four years of medical school, according to a 2010 report in Academic Medicine. In a 2016 study, researchers at Case Western Reserve University examined data from 25 family medicine, internal medicine and OB-GYN medical residency programs throughout Ohio: What they found is that these programs averaged 2.8 hours of instruction on obesity, nutrition and physical activity counseling, and only 42 percent of them taught the residents techniques for how to perform health behavior counseling.

Given this, it’s not exactly shocking that many doctors would receive a failing grade on nutritional know-how. A 2016 study in the International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health assessed the basic nutritional knowledge of fourth-year medical/osteopathic school graduates entering a pediatric residency program and found that on average, the incoming interns answered only 52 percent of the 18 questions correctly.

Why has nutrition been given short shrift in medical schools? There are several reasons, especially a lack of funding and a shortage of trained faculty to provide high-quality nutrition instruction, and a focus on treating rather than preventing diseases, says Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. “The assumption is that doctors will refer patients to dietitians.”

Plus, the medical school “curriculum is crowded, and it’s hard to make room for new priorities,” notes Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center and a U.S. News Eat+Run contributor. “The basic structure of medical education was put in place in 1920, long before lifestyle-related chronic disease was a major public health focus.”

Another factor: The culture of current medicine, “which has increasingly focused on pharmacologic treatments, rather than lifestyle modifications,” says Dr. Marion Vetter, an adjunct assistant professor of medicine in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine who is also a registered dietitian. “Both patients and providers want to see rapid results, whether it is weight change or improvements in blood glucose or lipids. Dietary modifications and lifestyle changes typically involve a slow and steady approach instead of a fast fix. For this reason, patients frequently revert to previous behaviors and tend to make few durable lifestyle changes, which may discourage physicians from spending the time to provide dietary education.”

Thomas Edison said that “The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

Doctors of chiropractic are not only trained in addressing conditions of the spine, but they are also formally educated in clinical examination and diagnosis of the human body, with a focus on conservative health care interventions for the well-being of the whole person.  While more and more vitamins and supplements are available to the public, many are synthetic and may not contain the whole food ingredients that are most beneficial based on your health and wellness needs.  Doctors of chiropractic study which vitamins are easily absorbed by the body and are concerned with learning which companies organically grow and handle plants with care to make food-based vitamins and supplements that can benefit you.

According to a study published in the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, “Chiropractic is a major leading alternative health care profession in the United States and is a voice of prevention and wellness. Although medical practices typically involve little nutritional consultation, medical doctors rely on the use of dietitians and nutritional counselors for more involved nutritional support for patients. In keeping with this practice concept, conventional medical school education may contain few or no classes in nutrition, with some medical schools offering electives in nutrition. Most chiropractic colleges have a greater emphasis on nutrition by offering at least 2 nutrition courses in the core curricula with some offering extended training in elective programs or in bachelor’s or master’s programs.¹  Once licensed, chiropractic physicians are required to obtain considerable hours in continuing education each year, of which many popular courses pertain specifically to nutrition for health and wellness care.

Chiropractic care and healthy nutrition can bring many benefits on their own, but together they can complement each other to result in even greater positive health outcomes.

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Reference:  U.S. News & World Report – Health; http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/nutrition/how-much-do-doctors-learn-about-nutrition/ar-AAlgMaq#page=2