Doctors’ Nutritional Ignorance

4.3/5 - (37 votes)

Medical education continues to underemphasize clinical nutrition.

Discuss
Republish

The World Health Organization blames literally millions of deaths every year on inadequate fruit and vegetable intake. Almost as deadly as smoking. So if we care enough about ourselves and our families to not want to die a horrific death from smoking, we should put the same effort into eating more fruits and vegetables. We should eat fruits and vegetables as if our lives depended on it, because in a way they do.

Why haven’t many of us heard of this change from 5 A Day to 9 A Day? Well, the Federal Government spends about $10 million a year to educate people about healthy eating. Candy corporations spend about twice that amount just launching a new candy bar. Okay, but why don’t most doctors pass this information along? Because, odds are, your doctor never learned any of this. Less than a quarter of medical schools have even a single dedicated course on nutrition, and less than six percent of graduating physicians may have received any formal nutrition training. Out of thousands of hours of pre-clinical instruction, your doctor may have gotten an average of three hours of nutrition training. There was even a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that pitted doctors versus patients in a head-to-head test of basic nutrition knowledge—simple true or false questions. Guess who won? The patients. People off the street knew more about nutrition than their doctors, yet people still ask their doctors for nutrition advice.

What doctors may be telling their patients to eat may be killing them. It wasn’t too long ago that doctors were advising pregnant women to smoke cigarettes to help with morning sickness. Until doctors are taught more about nutrition, their advising us about diet may be physician-assisted suicide.

There is one doctor though, everyone trusts. Perhaps the most famous physician of all time: Dr. Benjamin Spock. Always on the forefront of important social issues. And in the final edition of his book, the bestselling book in American history (second only to the Bible), he recommended that all children be raised on meat- and dairy-free diets to prevent diseases like cancer.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

Image thanks to DarkoStojanovic via Pixabay. Image has been modified.

The World Health Organization blames literally millions of deaths every year on inadequate fruit and vegetable intake. Almost as deadly as smoking. So if we care enough about ourselves and our families to not want to die a horrific death from smoking, we should put the same effort into eating more fruits and vegetables. We should eat fruits and vegetables as if our lives depended on it, because in a way they do.

Why haven’t many of us heard of this change from 5 A Day to 9 A Day? Well, the Federal Government spends about $10 million a year to educate people about healthy eating. Candy corporations spend about twice that amount just launching a new candy bar. Okay, but why don’t most doctors pass this information along? Because, odds are, your doctor never learned any of this. Less than a quarter of medical schools have even a single dedicated course on nutrition, and less than six percent of graduating physicians may have received any formal nutrition training. Out of thousands of hours of pre-clinical instruction, your doctor may have gotten an average of three hours of nutrition training. There was even a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that pitted doctors versus patients in a head-to-head test of basic nutrition knowledge—simple true or false questions. Guess who won? The patients. People off the street knew more about nutrition than their doctors, yet people still ask their doctors for nutrition advice.

What doctors may be telling their patients to eat may be killing them. It wasn’t too long ago that doctors were advising pregnant women to smoke cigarettes to help with morning sickness. Until doctors are taught more about nutrition, their advising us about diet may be physician-assisted suicide.

There is one doctor though, everyone trusts. Perhaps the most famous physician of all time: Dr. Benjamin Spock. Always on the forefront of important social issues. And in the final edition of his book, the bestselling book in American history (second only to the Bible), he recommended that all children be raised on meat- and dairy-free diets to prevent diseases like cancer.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

Image thanks to DarkoStojanovic via Pixabay. Image has been modified.

Doctor's Note

How much do doctors know about nutrition? Check out these related videos:

For more context, see my blog posts: Cow’s Milk Casomorphin, Crib Death, and AutismPhysician-assisted suicide? When doctors give nutrition advice, and Protecting Our Babies From Pollutants.

If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here. Read our important information about translations here.

Subscribe to our free newsletter and receive the preface of Dr. Greger’s upcoming book How Not to Age.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This