Doctors are NOT Dietitians

Doctors aren’t dietitians. That’s right…I said it. I’m sure I’ll receive a lot of flack from the medical community for that statement, but let me explain.

A Doctor’s Job is to Diagnose and Prescribe

Whether the prescription is in the form of medication or advice, a doctor’s job is to get you help, diagnose your problem, and get you better. Too many times I’ve seen doctors give bad advice in regards to diet. I’ve seen 500 calorie diets, bad exercise advice, and just plain and simple bad advice and outdated ideas and theories about nutrition and exercise in general.

Let me stop right there and say that doctors have an important place in our society for sure. They are very bright people, and have spent their life educating themselves for their profession. But like all professions, they have their specialties, and more than likely, nutrition isn’t one of them.

The majority of doctors would be better serving their patients if they would diagnose the problem (a bad lifestyle), and then refer you to someone who specializes in nutrition or personal training services. But instead, they diagnose the problem (cardiovascular disease, diabetes), and then prescribe something for the symptoms (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides). Instead, they should be diagnosing the problem (a bad lifestyle), and then should be pointing you in the right direction to get the help you need. Sometimes medication is needed until you have your lifestyle under control. But medication is not the cure for the problem – only the symptoms.

You’d be surprised what a healthy diet and some exercise can do for your health. Billions of dollars are spent every year helping people lower their blood pressure, lower their cholesterol, or lower their triglycerides among hundreds of other ailments. Have you tried a better diet? Have you tried exercising? If you haven’t, that should be your first priority. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see a doctor to get your health checked out. It means your priority should be to focus on what caused you to be unhealthy in the first place, and then if that doesn’t work, seek medical help. Have you tried eating any of these healthy recipes to lower your blood pressure? Perhaps you should be doing these 3 core exercises to lower your cholesterol levels. Whatever you do, a better diet and some exercise can do nothing but improve your condition.

Doctors Spend Very Little Time Learning About Nutrition

Taking bad advice from a doctor because they have a PHD isn’t going to get you the help you need. People see the name Doctor, and automatically put all their faith in what they are saying. A PHD means they went to school for a certain amount of time to study a particular subject matter. A general physician spends very little time leaning about nutrition.

According to Scott A. Cunneen, MD, FACS, director of bariatric surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “The teaching of nutrition in U.S. medical schools ranks low on the priority list for most medical schools. There has been little progress over the last several decades, despite finding ourselves in the middle of an epidemic of obesity and diabetes.”

While what’s seen as a “sufficient” number of nutrition education hours is up for debate, studies conducted on behalf of UNC sought to determine just how much time was being devoted to nutrition in medical school education across the United States. The results were not promising.

For the most recent leg of UNC’s Nutrition in Medicine project (similar surveys were conducted in 2000 and 2004), nutrition educators at U.S. medical schools completed a two-page online survey between 2008 and 2009 regarding the kind and amount of nutrition education being offered, among other things.

“Our team of physicians, dietitians, and programmers has surveyed U.S. medical schools on nutrition education several times, most recently in 2008-2009,” says Kelly Adams, MPH, RD, lead author of the study. And “only 27% of the schools responding to our survey met the minimum benchmark of 25 hours of required nutrition education suggested by the National Academy of Sciences [NAS] in 1985. In our last survey in 2004, that number was 38%.”
Of the 109 schools (out of 127 total U.S. medical schools) responding to the survey, the average number of nutrition education hours offered was 19.6, and only one quarter required a dedicated nutrition course (compared with close to one third in 2004).

Source: Medical School Checkup

Don’t Treat the Symptom, Go After the Source of the Problem

Listen, some people are going to need medication – that’s just the way it is. However, I’d say that the majority of people could have either fixed or improved their condition through diet and exercise instead of wasting their money on prescription medication and doctors visits. For example, people with “slow” thyroids usually get a prescription for T4, when in reality, they should have first tried these tips for naturally increasing thyroid levels.

Or maybe the patient feels down and depressed, is gaining weight, and has decreased sex drive. The doctor wants to put the patient on hormone replacement therapy (HRT). In this case, they would probably get an injection of testosterone on a frequent schedule. Now, testosterone levels do decrease with age, but have you done everything possible to increase your levels before looking to do HRT? Here are 7 ways you can naturally boost your testosterone levels. While women are not going to get testosterone injections, they should still be trying to maximize their own production of testosterone for its powerful muscle building, sex drive, and fat loss capabilities. Try doing those tips first. Then if you still feel like you need some help, go to the doctor.

My goal on this website is to inform people, and give them the tools to make their own decisions. You need to understand the whys of what you are doing if you want to succeed. You can’t just blindly follow advice. Everyone has their own 2 cents to give you, but not everyone knows what they are talking about. Read, use common sense, and then make the decision for yourself based on what YOU think is right