[Interesting] You Vs. Your Doctor: Who Really Knows Best?

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You Vs. Your Doctor: Who Really Knows Best?

When seeking information on weight loss and nutrition, most people figure asking the experts will reveal the best advice. But with so many experts telling us to do different things, how can we sort through the facts and the “educated†guesses?

According to an online video created by Sott.net, a research project aimed toward analyzing different news items, doctors may not always know exactly what they’re talking about when it comes to what humans should eat.

The video reported that in a 2009 survey of 109 medical schools, researchers found three-quarters of those schools didn’t even have a course dedicated to nutrition.

So if doctors aren’t studying nutrition specifically, how are they certified to tell us what is and isn’t good for us?

When it comes to dieting, many women today believe anything the doc says, goes. However, an article by Health.com said perhaps it's safer to go with one’s gut instinct when discussing dieting options with a doctor.

According to the article, some doctors are “pushing the limits of what’s medically acceptable†by prescribing dangerous drugs or offering treatments that haven’t even been proven to work.

With all the different diet trends and fads today, many women turn to experts to tell them which ones are safe and which aren’t.

For example, many doctors offer the HCG diet plan, which includes eating just 500 calories per day and taking daily injections of a pregnancy hormone.

People who take injections of the hormone run the risk of side effects such as blood clots, depression, headaches, and breast tenderness.

According to Blackburn, MD, PhD, associate of the Division of Nutrition at Havard Medical School, it would be “unethical†for a physician to tell patients the HCG diet will work.

“There have been numerous studies of the HCG diet, all of which demonstrate that it works no better than a placebo,†Blackburn said.

So where should women turn when they want to find an effective diet that keeps them healthy and aids in weight loss?

Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto,†suggests we should make our diets less complicated and simply “get off the modern western diet.â€

“After spending several years trying to answer the supposedly incredibly complicated question of how we should eat in order to be maximally healthy, I discovered the answer was shockingly simple: eat real food, not too much of it, and more plants than meat,†Pollan said.

Pollan suggested people can live healthy lifestyles by simply cutting out the “food products," also known as processed foods, replacing them with real foods, watching portion sizes and increasing fruit and vegetable intake while taking it easy on the protein.

Although it seems simple, doesn’t it make perfect sense? And it doesn’t even take a degree to figure out.

Sources:

http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20494521,00.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-pollan/food-rules-a-completely-d_b...

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/227622-Connecting-the-Dots-Video-Serie...

http://www.empowher.com/diet-amp-nutrition/content/you-vs-your-doctor-who-really-knows-best?extsrc=nl061611