Medical Doctors (MDs) to Get a Dose of Nutrition

Many medical doctors are now recognizing how strongly nutrition influences overall health, chronic disease, and longevity—an idea long emphasized in naturopathic and functional medicine.

Poor dietary patterns are among the biggest contributors to chronic illness, affecting seven of the ten leading causes of death in the United States. At the same time, rising obesity rates, food insecurity, and escalating healthcare spending have highlighted how essential nutrition is to both prevention and treatment.

Despite this, most medical doctors receive little or no meaningful nutrition training. Medical schools and residency programs have not been required to teach core nutrition competencies, leaving many physicians feeling unprepared to counsel patients about diet and lifestyle.

This gap has been increasingly concerning given that 90% of the nation’s $4.3 trillion in healthcare spending goes toward chronic, diet-influenced conditions.

To help close this gap, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution in 2022 urging medical schools, residencies, and fellowships to significantly increase nutrition education.

With Medicare already spending hundreds of billions on diet-related disease—and with approximately $16.2 billion in federal funding spent annually to support medical training—Congress expects future physicians to be better equipped to guide patients in using nutrition to prevent disease, improve health, and reduce healthcare costs.

Optimal Takeaways

• Diet is one of the strongest factors affecting chronic disease risk—even more than genetics.
• Many doctors receive little to no formal nutrition training, despite nutrition’s major role in health.
• Poor diet contributes to most of the top causes of death and drives high healthcare costs.
• A new bipartisan resolution urges medical schools and residencies to teach more nutrition.
• Better physician nutrition training may improve health outcomes and reduce long-term costs.

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