Med School Accreditors to Include Nutrition in Requirements

Beginning with students entering medical school this fall will need to complete at least 40 hours of nutrition education or pass a competency requirement to graduate under new standards adopted by eight of the nation’s leading accreditors, assessors, and medical organizations, Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy announced Monday (6/9).

“Poor diets are the primary driver of America’s chronic disease epidemic, and today’s announcement reflects the shifting landscape toward placing nutrition and prevention at the core of patient health,” said Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “Still, more work remains, and I look forward to seeing nutrition play an increased role as the latest science, data, and best practices develop.”

Why Should You Care? At one level, this is good news. It has been pretty well established that diet plays a role in developing some serious diseases. For instance, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn successfully reversed serious heart disease in patients for whom the cardiovascular doctors had determined there was nothing that could be done. How? By taking hem off a red-meat diet and putting them on a strict vegetarian diet.

What the bev/al community needs to guard against is anti-alcohol zealots seizing control of what is taught in medical school, resulting in doctors telling patients "just one drop of alcohol" may kill them, per the World Health Organization line, rather than the balanced and nuanced science in the report issued last year by the National Academies of Science, Medicine & Engineering.