If foods and supplements are so effective, why is this not common knowledge in our healthcare? Well, we can tell you that doctors do not get much education in nutrition. If they are lucky, they get one or two courses of around 25 hours during their entire study. The article Status of nutrition education in medical schools in the journal Academic Medicine stated that in 2010, only 28 (27 percent) of the 105 medical schools in the United States met the minimum 25 required nutrition education hours set by the National Academy of Sciences. Six years earlier, in 2004, 40 (38 percent) of 104 schools did so. The trend was going the wrong way.
After their study, most doctors are financially stimulated by the pharmaceutical industry to use up their limited “free” time to learn about the new drugs and new technologies, which will generate a lot of profits. However, nutrition and food do not generate money and are seldom picked up by doctors in our mainstream healthcare system. According to “Autoimmune fix”, the microbiome, for example, is the hottest topic in medical research today. In 2007, 396 new research papers were published on the subject. In 2015, that number was 5,512. That’s 5,512 teams of researchers who spent months and months studying this topic, writing papers, submitting them for publication, and then being published. But these researches are not picked up by our doctors anytime soon.
According to the research by Z. S. Morris, S. Wooding, and J. Grant, it takes an average of 17 years for research findings to work their way down to your local doctors. If foods and nutrients are involved, it takes even longer. Although the numbers are coming from the US health care system, the situation in Europe and Asian is not any better.
Since our doctors are not taught about this, they think that food and nutrients do not play any significant role in healing. And we, the people, think that our mainstream doctors know everything about health and healing. We think that they are up to date and base their actions on the latest science and researches. Our base assumptions are wrong. Most doctors will, therefore never prescribe proper diets or nutrients with clear instructions if you are ill but will follow their medical procedures prescribing pills to fight the symptoms. These pills can cause the underlying problems to continue and worsen along with side effects of which, in the long run, can lead to new diseases or ailments. And the process repeats itself for the newly acquired diseases or ailments caused by the side effects.
Example rickets
The doctor who first suggested that the lack of sun was the cause of rickets (weak and soft bones leading to skeletal deformities) in Industrial London in the 19th century was the laughing stock for the rest of his life. According to the book “Sunshine and vitamin D“:
- 1824: Cod-liver oil, long known as a folk medicine, was found to be an important treatment (due to its vitamin D). “… Treatment lost favor because doctors could not explain how it works …”
- 1890: Dr. Palm suggested the sun as a treatment. Nobody believed him.
- 1918: Again, doctors proposed cod-liver oil as a treatment.
- 1921: Sunlight/vitamin D published as a treatment.
It took almost 100 years until the medical industry acknowledged that deficiency of vitamin D or lack of sunlight were the cause of rickets, while the cure was in our midst all the time and while a lot of people were using it.
Example smoking
The first studies that showed that smoking caused cancer took place in the late 20s. As you may recall, the tobacco industry has successfully funded medical studies that first showed that smoking was healthy for people, and later that it caused no harm at all. The first ban on smoking by the Dutch government was in 2004 and by most of the states of the USA was in 2012. So, in this case, it took more than 80 years before we act on the first proven results of medical studies.
Example diabetes
Doctors prescribe injection with insulins and other medicines to treat diabetes 2, while they are not working. The medical industry is investing billions to try to find a magic medical. However, it is almost common knowledge that diabetes 2 is caused by eating the wrong foods and is reversible. Please read this about preventing diabetes 2.
Example cancer
Many doctors with knowledge about nutrition know that you can prevent cancer and stop the progression of cancer with foods. But not many doctors dare to speak out. Please read this about preventing cancer.
Conclusion
Doctors are taught that medicine heal diseases and not foods/nutrients although it is so obvious that medicine mostly treat symptoms and allow the underlying root problem grows rampantly. Doctors just don’t know enough about foods and vitamins. Unfortunately, some doctors (and smart people with bachelor’s and master’s degrees) tend to be prejudiced and reject anything that they don’t believe without fact-checking. Furthermore, there is a movement that discourages the public to research about curing by foods and discredits the doctors who are preaching this. They label cures by foods and nutrients as quackery knowingly or unknowingly.
With a chronic disease, you can wait another 50 years until the medical industry reach a consensus while the cure might be already among our midst. Or you can study your disease and find a cure in foods and nutrients.