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For specialists, sure. But for a GP shouldn't it be essential to be knowledgeable and effective about basic fitness and nutrition? My (relatively uninformed)

by alex_c 14y ago

For specialists, sure. But for a GP shouldn't it be essential to be knowledgeable and effective about basic fitness and nutrition? My (relatively uninformed) impression is that studies of fitness and nutrition are surprisingly unsophisticated relative to research for curing specific diseases. This is basically the debate of preventive care vs. palliative care (and, I guess, the argument that one allows for much higher profits than the other).

jacques_chester 14y ago
It's not just profit. It's hard to get funding for research into training. Nobody wants to be the public research administrator who put $$$ down for research into the effects of hypertrophy. So the studies that do get done tend to be small. A lot of what is known about sports science relies on meta-studies, because so many training studies are of the form "we took 20 college-aged males and divided them into three groups ..."
vacri 14y ago
Western medicine has historically never been focused on preventative medicine; their role has traditionally been to make you healthy, not keep you healthy. It's not the conspiracy some might suggest, it's just that historically you called a doctor when you were ill, not for lifestyle advice. When it comes to fitness, you still don't - unless you're talking to a sports doctor, you're not going to get a useful training programme tailored for your needs. Regarding GPs in particular - they aren't really about keeping you trim and terrific. They're about dealing with niggling issues while flagging serious ones for referral to specialists. They do know about basic fitness and diet, but they're not specialists in the area - see sports doctors and dieticians. Also consider that diet is a rapidly moving target at the moment - there's a lot of contradictory opinion and new info coming out all the time. It's not a GP's role to stay at the bleeding edge of medicine. That's what specialists do, and as the specialists settle on the right thing, it filters down to the non-specialists. You can of course find GPs who take special interests in certain areas, and may get lucky and find one that loves fitness and diet. Also, 'palliative' doesn't mean 'after injury', it means 'relieve symtoms without attempting a cure', and most doctors would rather cure a problem than use the patient as a cash cow (there's enough work out there, even before you get to the ethical issues). Perhaps a better pair of terms would be preventative/proactive vs reactive care.
- alex_c 14y ago
  Great comment, and I agree with you on all counts. I believe western medicine should put more emphasis on preventive care and GPs, as most people's first and sometimes only point of contact for health-related matters, should be much more informed and proactive about their patients' fitness and nutrition. Regarding diet being a rapidly moving target, that is exactly my point. It seems to me, as an uninformed layman, incredible how much we've learned about diseases like cancer and yet how relatively little we seem to know about diet, fitness, and the behavioural research related to them. Not because these topics are in any way more simple than understanding a specific disease, but because they affect everybody.

by alex_c 14y ago

jacques_chester 14y ago

It's not just profit. It's hard to get funding for research into training. Nobody wants to be the public research administrator who put $$$ down for research into the effects of hypertrophy. So the studies that do get done tend to be small. A lot of what is known about sports science relies on meta-studies, because so many training studies are of the form "we took 20 college-aged males and divided them into three groups ..."

vacri 14y ago

Western medicine has historically never been focused on preventative medicine; their role has traditionally been to make you healthy, not keep you healthy. It's not the conspiracy some might suggest, it's just that historically you called a doctor when you were ill, not for lifestyle advice. When it comes to fitness, you still don't - unless you're talking to a sports doctor, you're not going to get a useful training programme tailored for your needs. Regarding GPs in particular - they aren't really about keeping you trim and terrific. They're about dealing with niggling issues while flagging serious ones for referral to specialists. They do know about basic fitness and diet, but they're not specialists in the area - see sports doctors and dieticians. Also consider that diet is a rapidly moving target at the moment - there's a lot of contradictory opinion and new info coming out all the time. It's not a GP's role to stay at the bleeding edge of medicine. That's what specialists do, and as the specialists settle on the right thing, it filters down to the non-specialists. You can of course find GPs who take special interests in certain areas, and may get lucky and find one that loves fitness and diet. Also, 'palliative' doesn't mean 'after injury', it means 'relieve symtoms without attempting a cure', and most doctors would rather cure a problem than use the patient as a cash cow (there's enough work out there, even before you get to the ethical issues). Perhaps a better pair of terms would be preventative/proactive vs reactive care.

alex_c 14y ago
Great comment, and I agree with you on all counts. I believe western medicine should put more emphasis on preventive care and GPs, as most people's first and sometimes only point of contact for health-related matters, should be much more informed and proactive about their patients' fitness and nutrition. Regarding diet being a rapidly moving target, that is exactly my point. It seems to me, as an uninformed layman, incredible how much we've learned about diseases like cancer and yet how relatively little we seem to know about diet, fitness, and the behavioural research related to them. Not because these topics are in any way more simple than understanding a specific disease, but because they affect everybody.