PSA: Doctors are Not Trained in Nutrition

 

By Kim Marquardt, RN MSN

This blog post is from the Nurse Kim archives of myth busting. I want to share some "alternative" or maybe just lesser known health and wellness viewpoints for you to chew on.

*These posts are not intended as official medical advice.

They ARE meant to be fun, informative, and thought provoking, hopefully sparking an interest for you to do your own research (you can start with the links I provide!) and discover the marvels of the human body, and how it can function at its optimal performance level if we understand how it works and interacts with our environment and our diet.

I have a passion for health and wellness through lifestyle and nutrition and have done thousands of hours of research in addition to being a registered nurse for 23 years. I have done A LOT of self-experimentation in and around diet, lifestyle, body care, and supplementation and have spent a lot of time looking into the science behind it all (or lack thereof!). Check back weekly for the latest post!

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Believe it or not, American physicians get virtually no dietary or nutrition training in medical school. At first glance, some might not think this is a big deal. After all, that's what dieticians and nutritionists are for, right?

Well…

Not exactly. Most patients are not referred to these specialists for an "everyday" ailment or chronic illness unless it is specifically “diet related” like diabetes. But the fact of the matter is…

ALL MODERN-DAY AILMENTS ARE DIET RELATED.

I know… hefty claim, but don’t worry, I am prepared to back it up.

I want to illustrate this phenomenon about doctors with a funny story. As a 23-year nurse (2 decades of it in a hospital or surgery center) I had the distinct “privilege” of working hand in hand with physicians (I will let your imagination run wild as to why I put privilege in quotes 😉).

One day I was in the break room at the surgery center eating one of my favorite fatty snacks, bacon wrapped cream cheese. Yup you heard that right, a tbsp of cream cheese wrapped in a slice of bacon. Some of you may be in fear for my arteries right now, but fret not, even the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 2020 admitted that saturated fat has NEVER (yes I said NEVER) been shown to contribute to coronary artery disease in any study ever conducted (you might need to go back and read that again). Yeah. Tell your doctor.

This is why I enjoy my bacon and cream cheese absolutely guilt free, and YES you should too provided you are not eating a bunch of sugary processed foods causing systemic inflammation and excess fat storage.

Ok back to my story.

A doctor I worked with at the surgery center (who shall remain nameless) walked into the break room and promptly scoffed at my cream cheese and bacon snack choice. As any good doctor, he also promptly asked me what my cholesterol was whereby I obliged and told him my total was 199, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, my triglycerides (the actual fat energy swimming around in your blood and what puts you at highest risk for heart disease if elevated) were 30! Eat your heart out!

Sadly, I am not even sure he understood the significance of my triglycerides. After all, he is not a cardiologist 🙄. However, I think that even doctors of other specialties should be familiar with the basic breakdown of cholesterol for as much attention as the topic gets, but alas, he did not.

I digress.

As we were discussing my cholesterol, he tore open a Smuckers Uncrustables Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly Sandwich, then washed it down with a bottle of Dunkin Donuts Iced Mocha. Since he didn’t seem impressed with how glorious my triglycerides were I tried to make my point another way.

“At least I’m eating REAL FOOD,” I said with a sideways glance.

Whereby he briefly glanced down at the Uncrustable label as he crumpled it up to toss in the trash, shrugged, and made his way back to the OR. 

Good talk.

For full effect:

• Bacon: Pork, Water, Sea Salt, Celery Powder

• Cream Cheese: Pasteurized Milk and Cream, Cheese Culture, Salt

• Smuckers Uncrustables: Enriched Unbleached Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Unbleached Whole Wheat Flour, Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil, Salt, Dough Conditioners (Distilled Mono and Diglycerides, DATEM, Enzymes [with Wheat Starch, Ascorbic Acid, Calcium Peroxide]), Peanuts, Sugar, Molasses, Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed and Soybean), Mono and Diglycerides, Salt, Sugar, Grape Juice, Pectin, Citric Acid, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative).

• Dunkin Donuts Mocha: Coffee (Water, Coffee), Skim Milk, Sugar, Cream, Cocoa (Made with Alkali), Potassium Phosphate, Pectin.

Ok I’ll give it to him, the iced mocha is not that bad ingredient wise although VERY high in sugar. However, I was trying to illustrate to him (and now to you) the simple difference between REAL food and FRANKEN food.

My body knows EXACTLY what to do with bacon and cream cheese. Not so sure about the Uncrustable (delicious as it might be!).

My glorious triglycerides 

Now let’s circle back to the reason why my triglycerides are so magnificently low even though I am slamming down bacon without a care in the world (truth be told I only eat bacon a couple times a month just based on preference, but fear not, I eat plenty of butter, beef, eggs, cheese, avocados, dark chocolate, and olive oil to make up for the lack of daily bacon 😉).

My triglycerides are nice and low because I am metabolically flexible, which means I can burn both carbs and fat. The way you get (or stay) metabolically flexible is by cutting the processed foods in favor of nutrient dense whole foods and limiting environmental toxins as much as possible (i.e., throw out the Bath & Body Works in favor of minimal ingredient soaps and body care products). 

One more story

Let me tell you one more story to wrap this up, and to illustrate the miraculous effect of a whole foods proper human diet.

I had a very young co-worker at the surgery center who was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes with an A1C (3-month average of blood sugar) TWICE what it was supposed to be at 11.0 and triglycerides of 600!! Outrageously high triglycerides go hand in and with diabetes, of course, when you understand the mechanisms explained above. Within 2 weeks of cutting processed foods in favor of whole foods, she had to STOP the 2 diabetic meds her doctor had given her (because her blood sugar had normalized) and within 4 months, her A1C was LESS THAN HALF what it had been at 5.0 and her triglycerides had dropped 500 POINTS to 100!!!

NO MEDICATON ON THE MARKET DOES THAT.

A proper human diet does that.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

Until next week my friends.