How can nutritional science be made more accurate?

[cookderosa]

I'm focused more on doctors who, in the past, would advise their patients to reduce fat and caloric intake to lose weight. For the past 20 years or so, doctors have started advising their patients to go on low carb diets instead.

Then, you have conflicting findings in published studies. One study will tell you that artificial sweeteners will not raise your blood sugar levels and another study will tell you that a few of them will. These are peer-reviewed articles!

That's simple, if you look up med school curriculum, most only take 1 nutrition course.  It's a shame, because they have the scientific knowledge to really do some good- but it falls flat since they aren't really taught.  Interestingly, there are some med schools that are integrating nutrition AND cooking into their electives.

There should be more focus on nutrition since that's part of preventive medicine. I've heard the same thing about veterinarians. They don't learn much about nutrition while in school.

I agree! They are really the "front line" workers when it comes to health. On a side note, my master's thesis was an analysis of every culinary program in the USA. I looked up how many nutrition courses were taught in the program- chefs are also in a significant position to make a difference. The average was also 1, but many programs offered zero. So, you have the people cooking your food undereducated about nutrition, and you have a doctor advising you about health undereducated about nutrition, and an internet full of fads and phony advice. Further, to get access to an RD you have to usually have a prescription from your doctor (or pay out of pocket) and even then, an RD is going to be so hyper-specialized that a lot of people are turned off to the whole experience. I love watching 600-pound life when they meet with the RD. I know they do that to make it dramatic (because it's always a trainwreck) but RDs should see this and learn from it- there are so many moving parts to this problem, that I can't even begin to see a real solution. I left my MS program very very discouraged frankly.