Your doctors may know how your internal organs work but they may not be equipped to counsel patients about healthy food choices. A panel of nutrition experts says most medical students and trainees do not receive adequate training in this discipline.
The panel found that poor diets have been linked to seven of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States, from heart disease to diabetes and certain types of cancer. It has proposed 36 competencies to incorporate into the medical education of physician trainees.
Dr. Jaclyn Albin, associate professor of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern in Dallas, co-authored the consensus statement published in JAMA Network Open. Currently, she said medical training programs lack nationally required, uniform nutrition training competencies.
Included in the proposed competencies are foundational nutritional knowledge; assessment and diagnosis; communication skills; public health; collaborative support and treatment for specific conditions; and indications for referral.
Pairing nutrition experts with education leaders
“Our goal was to create standardization, and this was the first national effort pairing nutrition experts and educational leaders to define what medical students and residents need to know about the impact of nutrition on health,” said Albin, who launched UTSW’s Culinary Medicine Program in 2017.
“Fundamentally, the rate of chronic disease is so inextricably linked to eating patterns that if we are not teaching physicians properly, we cannot help people in a holistic or meaningful way. This is an opportunity to make people well, rather than simply managing illness.”
There’s a growing awareness of the role of food in health among healthcare institutions. The National Institutes of Health recommends a well-balanced diet to provide energy for daily activities and nutrients to prevent diet-related illnesses.
The issue has also gained the attention of Congress in recent years, due to the growing impact of obesity and diet-related diseases. According to peer-reviewed research estimates, the total Medicare cost for these conditions was about $800 billion in 2019 and federal spending on graduate medical education surpassed $16 billion in 2020.
The Rockefeller Foundation reports that the U.S. spends approximately $1.1 trillion on treating diet-sensitive diseases.
Two years ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Resolution 1118, calling for enhanced training to better prepare physicians to provide practical, evidence-based, and culturally sensitive advice about food and diet.