While emergency care and surgical techniques for accident victims has improved in modern times, treatment of lifestyle diseases has not progressed for decades within allopathic medicine. This undoubtedly originates in part from a failure to address the role of nutrition in disease and illness. The neglect shown for the nutritional needs of patients is highlighted well by a study (here) that reported 50% of hospital patients possessing suboptimal levels of vitamin C on admittance to hospital, and a further 19% possessing outright vitamin C deficiencies. After being in hospital for 17 days, none of the patients showed improvements in vitamin C levels, suggesting a complete disregard for the role of basic nutrition in health. There may therefore be reason to surmise that mainstream medicine is not proficient in understanding the nutritional needs of patients, and this may ultimately result from poor nutritional knowledge by doctors.
The record of medical success for individuals with obesity is not good, which suggests that knowledge of effective treatments is poor amongst healthcare professionals. This is surprising considering the large body of evidence in the literature regarding the nutritional origins of many of the major lifestyle diseases that affect Western nations, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity. The ignorance, and in some cases disdain, shown by the mainstream medical establishment to the efficacy of basic nutritional treatments undoubtedly originates from allopathic medical training, which is tailored towards the advocacy of pharmaceutical, rather than nutritional solutions. Based on self-reported claims of inadequate nutritional training during medical school1, researchers have attempted to understand the perceived attitudes, self-perceived proficiency and knowledge of nutrition shown by doctors working in hospitals in the United States.
Research published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition1 used a previously validated questionnaire to ask 114 hospital doctors about their perceived understanding of nutrition, and tested their nutritional knowledge with a multiple choice test. Subjects were also asked about their previous nutrition training. Interestingly, the survey was only completed by 61 (54%) of the doctors, highlighting from the onset, a disinterest in improving nutritional aspects of their profession. The average score in the nutrition test (here) was just 66%, with areas of poor knowledge being obesity, endocrine diseases, cardiovascular nutrition and nutrition assessments. Despite 77% of doctors agreeing that nutrition assessments were important in primary health care, and 94% agreeing that they should discuss nutrition with patients, only 14% of the doctors felt they had the training to perform these tasks properly. The study concluded that doctors lack nutritional knowledge and confidence because of poor nutritional training.
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1Pearson, T., Stone, E., Grundy, S., McBride, P., van Horn, L., Tobin, B. W. and the NAA Collaborative Group. 2001. Translation of nutritional science into medical education: the Nutrition Academic Award Program. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 74: 164-170
