NUTRITION: DON’T COUNT ON YOUR DOCTOR

While some patients suffering from severe depression get significant help from certain prescription drugs, the World Health Organization reports that 40 to 70 percent of patients are not responsive to antidepressant treatments.

And yet, despite the growing evidence of the importance of healthy eating to ease depression and the clear statistic that 40 to 70 percent of patients are not being helped by antidepressant drugs, the vast majority of medical doctors know little about nutrition.

The reason is simple:  even in 2019, less than 20 percent of medical schools have a single required course in nutrition. 

Dr. David Eisenberg, Director of Culinary Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, writes: “It is a scandal that health professionals are not introduced to facts above and beyond minimal information about nutritional deficiencies in biochemistry, and that these things do not appear on their examinations to become a practicing physician.”

Dr. Michael Greger, a public health advocate, writes: “Given that the number-one cause of death and the number-one cause of disability in this country is diet, surely nutrition is the number-one subject taught in medical school, right? Sadly, that is not the case.”

Despite this egregious lack of education among medical doctors, there is a growing number of practicing dieticians and nutritionists filling in the gap.  

TREND FORECAST: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of dieticians and nutritionists is projected to grow 11 percent from 2018 to 2028, much faster than the average for all occupations. The role of food in preventing and treating diseases such as depression is now much better known.  

Ontrendpreneurs^® will find many opportunities to fill in growing need for information and guidance in this field, as medical schools continue to graduate doctors with little understanding of the relationship between healthy eating and health.