Nutrition: A major missing component in medical school curriculums

As a Mayo Clinic and John Hopkins trained cardiologist, I completed over 80,000 hours of instruction to become a physician. Those 80,000 hours included everything from learning the basics about anatomy and physiology to determining which test, drug and procedure to use for almost any condition. Medical school and cardiology residency also taught me everything I needed to know to treat all sorts of heart problems, no matter how big or small. But I was never taught about nutrition - the factor that's causing all the heart disease in the first place. 

And that’s a major problem.

Over 90 million Americans are living with heart-related illnesses and, in most cases, the illnesses that affect them are preventable. You see, heart disease does not develop due to a lack of the right medications.  Heart disease develops due to a lack of the right foods. Prevention - and treatment - begin with food.

As a practicing cardiologist, I have switched how I treat heart disease to a more nutrition-centric approach, because changing diet is the secret to curing heart disease and because medications without the right nutrition foundation are, at best, an incomplete solution.   

I’ll discuss this topic in greater detail at my upcoming Facebook Live education talk, “What They Don’t Teach Cardiologists in Medical School.” It will air at 4 pm CST this Thursday, August 30.  I hope you can join me! Register here for the talk!