6 ms·

Remember that the average medical doctor does not take even ONE human nutrition course as part of their undergraduate or med school studies. They clearly have

by teach 6y ago

Remember that the average medical doctor does not take even ONE human nutrition course as part of their undergraduate or med school studies. They clearly have enough background to understand the complexities of human nutrition, but most haven't studied it at all or kept up with the research. It's like asking an ophthalmologist about bladder cancer -- they just don't know. Consider speaking to a registered dietitian, who actually are trained in this area.

monadic2 6y ago
Also—I just found this out a month ago—a "nutritionist" is not the same thing as a dietitian, which is licensed. I had assumed these were one and the same.
- bitwize 6y ago
  "Dietitian is like dentist while nutritionist is like tootheologist." --Dara Ó Briain
mark-r 6y ago
Also remember: What do you call a person who graduated in the bottom half of their medical class? Doctor.
- bgroat 6y ago
  That applies to the bottom of the class too. C's get degrees, etc, etc. It's dangerous, because it can come off as 'anti-science' but this is why I'm skeptical of many experts. Just think about how many shitty engineers you know. I know dozens of devs who I wouldn't let push to prod (not just because pushing to prod is bad), and they make 6-figures. There must be correspondingly bad doctors
  - pdbwimsey 6y ago
    > Just think about how many shitty engineers you know. None? Passing the PE exam is no joke. An engineering degree only counts as four years (half) of the experience required to take the test. Maybe software devs should have something similar? Then when someone calls themself an engineer (or your own word, don't use ours) you know they meet a minimum level of competency and experience.
  - mark-r 6y ago
    Yeah, I probably botched the exact wording - "at the bottom" would have been stronger. It's been a very long time since I've heard that one. I once worked with a guy who had gotten his MD in a different country. Didn't have any luck getting work when he moved back to the US, and I can understand why - I wouldn't trust him to cut my toenail based on his competence in his new profession.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    > I know dozens of devs who I wouldn't let push to prod Yes and some of them graduated in the upper half of the class. > There must be correspondingly bad doctors Things that you don't get taught, wisdom, humility, engagement, and for want of a better word diagnostics. Better a wise humble dummy who cares than a foolish smart person who doesn't.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  That's a great thought terminating cliche, but they've still managed to cross several other filters, like just getting into medical school and then grinding out across several years, internships, attending, etc. I got straight A's in my IT and CS classes, but DGAF about English and History. My overall GPA wasn't impressive... but I still got into VA Tech. Am I a bad programmer?
neuronic 6y ago
Why? Human nutrition is largely confused science. Industry takes advantage to make billions in profit with snake oils. I am this close before calling it pseudo-science but I think it's just the biological complexity that gets lost among nutritionists. We know so little that we shouldn't hand out advice at all apart from 'don't drink battery fluid'. It's hyper confusing: Salt bad, salt good [1]. Coconut oil holy, coconut oil devil [2]. Fat is evil, fat is saviour from the grandmaster of hell 'sugar' so it's good again. Take your vitamins but actually don't because compound vitamins increase mortality [2] but it actually doesn't matter since uptake is shit anyway. Eat Goji berries because that's what George Washington did to become POTUS (according to that companies marketing). Just kidding, he merely ate bread which is bad for you and just like stopping oat from taking over we need to sell you actual milk for your bone health that also kills you because antibiotics and cholesterol which, newsflash, has no links to heart disease [4]. Etc etc etc............ [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/09/salt-not-as-damaging-to-health-as-previously-thought-says-study https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/09/salt-not-as-... [2] https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/coconut-oil https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/coconut-oil [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23255568/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23255568/ [4] https://www.nhs.uk/news/heart-and-lungs/study-says-theres-no-link-between-cholesterol-and-heart-disease/ https://www.nhs.uk/news/heart-and-lungs/study-says-theres-no...
- ghostpepper 6y ago
  Note that the post you replied to recommended a registered dietician, and yet your post seems directed at nutritionists. The distinction is important because the former group is generally much better educated than the latter. Not sure about the USA, but in Canada the requirements to become a registered dietician include a B. Sc. and writing a standard exam, whereas there are no requirements to call yourself a nutritionist.
  - saiya-jin 6y ago
    You are correct but OP is pointing to generally recommended controversies, backed by FDA and other agencies by 'research', running for decades. I wouldn't bet much on somebody holding a title being automatically correct. If we as mankind don't know these super-complex effects that can take half a lifetime to manifest, no amount of titles will get you closer to truth.
nradov 6y ago
Would studying nutrition be a good use of medical students' time? Within an evidence-based medicine framework, hardly any nutritional studies qualify as "high" quality. Much of it is barely a step above junk with multiple uncontrolled variables. And in fairness to nutrition researchers, limits imposed by funding and ethics make meaningful large-scale human studies very difficult. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_evidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_evidence In terms of human nutrition we know how to prevent acute diseases caused by deficiencies like kwashiorkor, beriberi, scurvy, Rickets, etc. And we know that excess consumption causes weight gain. Beyond those basics we should treat most nutritional claims with skepticism, regardless of whether they come from a physician, dietician, or nutritionist.
- dheera 6y ago
  I think it very much would be, yes. If relevant policy-makers want to speak to me privately I'd be happy to but I had an instance of symptoms that 8+ well-recognized doctors at Stanford were unable to diagnose for a half a year, but a dietician that spoke to me was able to give me an answer to in about 10 minutes that seemed to solve my problem over a period of a few weeks after I started followed their advice.
- mhkool 6y ago
  The whole medicine study is a joke since it focuses on symptom treatment and not treatment of the cause(s) of the symptoms. Functional Medicine is the science that tries to find the causes and treat those but less than 1% of medical doctors practice functional medicine.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > whole medicine study is a joke since it focuses on symptom treatment and not treatment of the cause(s) This is bunk. Antibiotics, chemotherapy and gene therapy are three treatments, off the top of my head, that are proven to treat causes and not symptoms. Functional Medicine, on the other hand, has a history of being fined for false marketing [1]. I would be shocked if an entire percent of medical practitioners would touch it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_medicine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_medicine

by teach 6y ago

monadic2 6y ago

Also—I just found this out a month ago—a "nutritionist" is not the same thing as a dietitian, which is licensed. I had assumed these were one and the same.

bitwize 6y ago
"Dietitian is like dentist while nutritionist is like tootheologist." --Dara Ó Briain

mark-r 6y ago

Also remember: What do you call a person who graduated in the bottom half of their medical class? Doctor.

bgroat 6y ago
That applies to the bottom of the class too. C's get degrees, etc, etc. It's dangerous, because it can come off as 'anti-science' but this is why I'm skeptical of many experts. Just think about how many shitty engineers you know. I know dozens of devs who I wouldn't let push to prod (not just because pushing to prod is bad), and they make 6-figures. There must be correspondingly bad doctors
- pdbwimsey 6y ago
  > Just think about how many shitty engineers you know. None? Passing the PE exam is no joke. An engineering degree only counts as four years (half) of the experience required to take the test. Maybe software devs should have something similar? Then when someone calls themself an engineer (or your own word, don't use ours) you know they meet a minimum level of competency and experience.
- mark-r 6y ago
  Yeah, I probably botched the exact wording - "at the bottom" would have been stronger. It's been a very long time since I've heard that one. I once worked with a guy who had gotten his MD in a different country. Didn't have any luck getting work when he moved back to the US, and I can understand why - I wouldn't trust him to cut my toenail based on his competence in his new profession.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > I know dozens of devs who I wouldn't let push to prod Yes and some of them graduated in the upper half of the class. > There must be correspondingly bad doctors Things that you don't get taught, wisdom, humility, engagement, and for want of a better word diagnostics. Better a wise humble dummy who cares than a foolish smart person who doesn't.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
That's a great thought terminating cliche, but they've still managed to cross several other filters, like just getting into medical school and then grinding out across several years, internships, attending, etc. I got straight A's in my IT and CS classes, but DGAF about English and History. My overall GPA wasn't impressive... but I still got into VA Tech. Am I a bad programmer?

neuronic 6y ago

Why? Human nutrition is largely confused science. Industry takes advantage to make billions in profit with snake oils. I am this close before calling it pseudo-science but I think it's just the biological complexity that gets lost among nutritionists. We know so little that we shouldn't hand out advice at all apart from 'don't drink battery fluid'. It's hyper confusing: Salt bad, salt good [1]. Coconut oil holy, coconut oil devil [2]. Fat is evil, fat is saviour from the grandmaster of hell 'sugar' so it's good again. Take your vitamins but actually don't because compound vitamins increase mortality [2] but it actually doesn't matter since uptake is shit anyway. Eat Goji berries because that's what George Washington did to become POTUS (according to that companies marketing). Just kidding, he merely ate bread which is bad for you and just like stopping oat from taking over we need to sell you actual milk for your bone health that also kills you because antibiotics and cholesterol which, newsflash, has no links to heart disease [4]. Etc etc etc............ [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/09/salt-not-as-damaging-to-health-as-previously-thought-says-study https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/09/salt-not-as-... [2] https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/coconut-oil https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/coconut-oil [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23255568/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23255568/ [4] https://www.nhs.uk/news/heart-and-lungs/study-says-theres-no-link-between-cholesterol-and-heart-disease/ https://www.nhs.uk/news/heart-and-lungs/study-says-theres-no...

ghostpepper 6y ago
Note that the post you replied to recommended a registered dietician, and yet your post seems directed at nutritionists. The distinction is important because the former group is generally much better educated than the latter. Not sure about the USA, but in Canada the requirements to become a registered dietician include a B. Sc. and writing a standard exam, whereas there are no requirements to call yourself a nutritionist.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  You are correct but OP is pointing to generally recommended controversies, backed by FDA and other agencies by 'research', running for decades. I wouldn't bet much on somebody holding a title being automatically correct. If we as mankind don't know these super-complex effects that can take half a lifetime to manifest, no amount of titles will get you closer to truth.

nradov 6y ago

Would studying nutrition be a good use of medical students' time? Within an evidence-based medicine framework, hardly any nutritional studies qualify as "high" quality. Much of it is barely a step above junk with multiple uncontrolled variables. And in fairness to nutrition researchers, limits imposed by funding and ethics make meaningful large-scale human studies very difficult. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_evidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_evidence In terms of human nutrition we know how to prevent acute diseases caused by deficiencies like kwashiorkor, beriberi, scurvy, Rickets, etc. And we know that excess consumption causes weight gain. Beyond those basics we should treat most nutritional claims with skepticism, regardless of whether they come from a physician, dietician, or nutritionist.

dheera 6y ago
I think it very much would be, yes. If relevant policy-makers want to speak to me privately I'd be happy to but I had an instance of symptoms that 8+ well-recognized doctors at Stanford were unable to diagnose for a half a year, but a dietician that spoke to me was able to give me an answer to in about 10 minutes that seemed to solve my problem over a period of a few weeks after I started followed their advice.
mhkool 6y ago
The whole medicine study is a joke since it focuses on symptom treatment and not treatment of the cause(s) of the symptoms. Functional Medicine is the science that tries to find the causes and treat those but less than 1% of medical doctors practice functional medicine.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > whole medicine study is a joke since it focuses on symptom treatment and not treatment of the cause(s) This is bunk. Antibiotics, chemotherapy and gene therapy are three treatments, off the top of my head, that are proven to treat causes and not symptoms. Functional Medicine, on the other hand, has a history of being fined for false marketing [1]. I would be shocked if an entire percent of medical practitioners would touch it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_medicine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_medicine