Are you more knowledgeable than your doctor?

Have you ever wondered how your doctor could possibly keep so much knowledge in their head?

Especially after 4 years of college…
... another 4 years of medical school right after…
... then their hospital residency putting their knowledge into practice...
… plus staying on top of clinical studies and the latest medical breakthroughs while treating an average of 19 patients per day!

It’s enough to make your head spin! Yet they still know how and what to prescribe for your ailments. Every time.

Or do they?

Shocking research out of the Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, implies otherwise.

A special team of UNC researchers surveyed all 127 accredited US medical schools (at the time). The researchers wanted to know just how much the schools’ 4-year curriculum taught students about nutrition.

Apparently, it wasn’t all that much…

105 medical schools responded to the questions about nutritional training.¹ Here were the bleak results:

• Only 25% of schools required med students to take a course on nutrition. (5 years prior, 30% of schools required it.)
• 6 of the schools required NO nutrition training at all.
• Just 27% of the schools met the minimum 25-hour nutrition instruction requirement set by the National Academy of Sciences. (5 years prior, 38% of schools met the minimum requirement.)

Here’s the most eye-opening stat for me: On average, students received 19.6 hours of nutrition instruction throughout med school. 19.6 hours. That’s less than 5 hours each year!

If you knew your doctor received less than 20 hours of nutritional instruction in med school, would you be as confident in their expertise? Would you trust them each time they dismissed a nutritional supplement you asked about?

Or… would you be as comfortable when they suggested a specific nutritional regimen?

I don’t know about you, but now I’m not. And unless your doctor is trained in functional medicine or at least nutrition, they might not know what to tell you. So they’ll likely err on the side of caution when it comes to nutrition. (Even if the other “side” of caution is precisely what you need.)

It’s Not All Doom And Gloom

As you can see, this isn’t your doctor’s fault. Just like you and I, your doctor went through the educational journey they were given. They put in their time and are qualified to give medical advice on the subjects they studied - but nutrition is not one of them!

Some doctors voluntarily earn extra certifications or degrees in functional medicine. And that can help you better manage your nutritional concerns and supplements. (Of course, ask your doctor if this is the case with them!)

If they have done extra training, that’s comforting to know in light of more recent findings. Namely, a 2015 study published in the Journal of Biomedical Education. This study shows 29% of accredited medical schools are still falling short of the 25-hour minimum.²

Worse, over 1 in 3 (36%) schools don’t even provide HALF the 25-hour minimum. That’s less than 12.5 hours in total— or at most 3 hours every year. (I’ll let that sink in…)

What You Can Do To Protect Yourself

I hope this reminds you to continue doing your own research. Yes, lean on your doctor for advice and insights on all the areas they are trained for. But keep in mind their shortcomings revealed in this research.

Finally, it’s important that you have open and honest chats with any medical professional and prescribing doctor. Keep the communication coming!

And don’t forget to look here for the latest nutritional breakthroughs in bone health and much more: https://www.algaecal.com/expert-insights/category/nutrition/

I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but a realist. And here is the reality of our physicians’ nutritional training today:

“It cannot be a realistic expectation for physicians to effectively address obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, hospital malnutrition, and many other conditions as long as they are not taught during medical school and residency training how to recognize and treat the nutritional root causes.”²
- Kelly M. Adams, et al. (study authors)

Always do your own research!

SOURCES:

1 https://www.aamc.org/download/451374/data/nutriritoneducationinusmedscho...
2 https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jbe/2015/357627/