Is An Apple A Day Teachable In Med Schools?
By Anne Dachel
Open letter to HHS Sec Robert Kennedy Jr. on teaching medical students about good nutrition
Who decides what good nutrition is?
June 4th ABC News announced that HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy will soon require doctors to learn about good nutrition as part of their medical school training.
RFK Jr. to tell medical schools to teach nutrition or lose federal funding—The health secretary says he will issue the edict within a year
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he plans to tell American medical schools they must offer nutrition courses to students or risk losing federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Speaking at an event in North Carolina in April, Kennedy lamented, "There's almost no medical schools that have nutrition courses, and so [aspiring physicians] are taught how to treat illnesses with drugs but not how to treat them with food or to keep people healthy so they don't need the drugs."
He added, "One of the things that we'll do over the next year is to announce that medical schools that don't have those programs are not going to be eligible for our funding, and that we will withhold funds from those who don't implement those kinds of courses." . . .
A study published in the Journal of Biomedical Education in 2015 surveyed 121 American medical schools in 2012-2013 and found that medical students spend, on average, only 19 hours on required nutrition education over their four years.
Those numbers have frustrated some nutrition experts, who argue doctors should focus more on preventing diet-driven conditions like obesity and diabetes and less on prescribing drugs that treat the problems.
"I think there's a great sense of urgency that we have to do something about this," said Dr. David Eisenberg, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who told ABC News that requiring nutrition education at all medical schools is "long overdue." . . .
A representative for the Association of American Medical Colleges, which counts more than 170 medical schools among its members, declined to comment but told ABC News that an e-survey of medical schools the group conducted last year found that every school that responded reported "covering nutrition content in some form."
Still, the 2015 study, conducted by two researchers from the University of North Carolina and one from Harvard, painted a damning picture of the state of nutrition education at America's medical schools.
"Many US medical schools still fail to prepare future physicians for everyday nutrition challenges in clinical practice," the authors wrote.
One might think that doctors would be required to have an extensive background in this area, but the concept that what we eat can dramatically affect our health seems to be a foreign idea to 21st century medicine given that it is barely covered in a typical medical school curriculum.
I asked Ken Stoller, MD about his reaction to Kennedy’s plan. Dr. Stoller is a long time critic of mainstream medical practices and the control of the pharmaceutical industry over healthcare in America.
This is his open letter to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.
On Teaching Medical students Nutrition
Given that HHS now wants all medical schools to teach a course in nutrition we need some context. First and foremost, the current teaching paradigm for medical schools is still the foundational piece of Rockefeller medicine where physicians were only to learn enough to prescribe patented medicines. They were to know nothing about nutrition, nothing about parasitology, nothing about environmental medicine, nothing about what causes cancer or how to treat it beyond what a pharmaceutical company dictated.
For well over half a century only 20% of medical schools had a course in nutrition. The average length of that course was two hours. It was almost always taught by the senior hospital dietician. Yes, the person who was in charge of the delicious (NOT) menu hospital patients were served up. So, in that worthless two hours we were told about calories, and fat and sugar. How high fructose corn syrup was good for us but fat wasn’t, how cereal was good for us, but eggs weren’t, how seed oils were great for heart health, but fruit oils weren’t, how a low salt diet was good for blood pressure, which is one of many myths circulating and continues to circulate.
It is one thing to have a course in nutrition, but who exactly is going to teach it and how will it be taught?
Having a course in nutrition, like the one I had when I matriculated at Penn State, was less than worthless. Mandating driver’s ed to the blind won’t accomplish anything but wasting everyone’s time at best.
For decades the food pyramid was controlled by Big Ag and others who wanted us eating what they made, not what was healthy.
So let’s teach nutrition, but not Big Ag, Big Pharma nutrition. If I only had a dime for every time I told a patient to eat what their ancestors ate and avoid the ultra-high processed foods and slop served up by corporations.
First and foremost, we need to officially embrace, at a government level, what good nutrition actually is and that can be taught with uniformity, but I don’t see the current medical paradigm allowing that to take place.
K Paul Stoller MD, FACHM
Fides constantis, Dilectio absoluta, Vita aeterna
Hyperbaric & Integrative Medicine
StollerHBOT.com www.incurableme.org
One has to worry about the power and control of Big Ag, as Dr. Stroller points out.
The American diet typically is loaded with toxic chemicals and processed, denatured food making us the sickest people on earth. Doctors are going to have to be educated in what a healthy diet actually is AND in what all the bad food is doing to us.
Training doctors about nutrition is urgent and so is waking up the American people to how our food is actually killing us. Starting on October 1st in the UK, TV ads for junk food will be banned before 9 pm. We need to see things like this in the US too.
There has to be a concerted effort to promote natural, non-GMO, organic food and a strong condemnation of the food dyes, the high fructose corn syrup, the hydrogenated oils, the seed oils, the aspartame and all the other additives that are poisoning us.
How strong will the message to doctors actually be? How much change will we really see?
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.
Kathy Sinclare; You put your finger on the problem.
There are so many people unwilling to give up anything.
I ran into a man sitting in a doctor's office that told me all of his health problems. He had had kidney cancer, and was resigned that it would come his way again. He also was addicted to cokes. I mean addicted. He told me he was, that he could never give them up. That and sweets, He just couldn't he said.
There are some really sick people out there, truth is there really are food addicts out there. What to do about them?
For the rest of us, just a little help with Red 40, aluminum dyes, and MSG. which seems to be in everything.
Here is my miracle for the summer. I have had to do some really hot, sweaty, hard manual labor this summer. This past month I have got down with my hip. I mean, I have been struggling, I am having a hard time getting up, hard time walking, even hurt down in my toes. I also felt stiff, all over, a struggle to move. I guess old age, but dang it came on fast. I was thinking wow, wheel chair soon.
Last night I was reading and came across sweating you lose a lot of magnesium, and it can cause hip problems. I took magnesium theonate last night and I am so much better today. I had no problems with , another hard manual day. And you lose zinc too through sweating and yes, I have lost some of my hair. I am taking that too.
I also read that it can help anxiety. My son has that in spades. I have the magnesium thionate, but I had just stopped everything They call for so many supplements it becomes overwhelming and we quit. Well we started back in. Who knew that I could not take in enough magnesium through food to replace what I lost
Posted by: Benedetta | June 09, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Good nutrition begins with how our food is grown. The closer we are to natural methods (non-toxic natural fertilizer, non-gmo), the healthier the food. If the food is healthy, one can eat in moderation from all the food groups and maintain a healthy weight. I just saw this in practice in Colombia, South America. We visited friends there, ( a few owned family farms) and had freshly prepared delicious meals. I never felt bloated or uncomfortable after eating. The general population maintains a healthy weight. They live close to the land and practice home style cooking. Individuals with vaccine injured guts, however, would still have food issues, but healthy food could improve their condition. Americans would need to return to stay-at-home moms fixing fresh home cooked meals and making sure the children ate only nutritious food. I am afraid America is beyond the point of no return.
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | June 09, 2025 at 01:33 PM
Laura Hayes - Spot on. WHY are taxpayers funding the Rockefeller Men, aka medical schools?!!
Here is a story about nutritional counseling, albeit from 25 years ago. When I was a practicing nutritionist around 2000 one of my clients was an MD Neurologist at a nearby prestigious hospital. She was grossly obese and was seeking help to lose weight. I knew that I couldn't speak to the myriad of nutritional herbs and supplements that would help her so I focused on diet. Everything I suggested such as bringing her own lunch, avoiding carbs and sugar, preparing a simple nutritious dinner, she threw up red flags. "I am so very busy. I usually work 80 hours a week. I don't have time to prepare foods (a salad??!). The hospital provides catered lunches about 2-3 times a week, 'drug lunches', for the Pharma reps to fill us in on the meds. A lot of pasta, rolls and desserts. Also the drug companies fly me out to a resort at least every other month for a weekend of wining and dining to educate me". I could tell she wasn't receptive to my suggestions so I recommended one supplement, chromium GTF (glucose tolerance factor) twice daily with a meal. I think she shuddered when I mentioned she could buy it at a health food store.
When she returned the following week the first thing out of her mouth was the research she had done on chromium and how toxic it could be. Very smug and arrogant. I countered that many of the drugs she prescribed probably had toxic side-effects also and that's when I think I lost her as a client. I tried to reassure her that chromium was benign when taken as directed and helped the body to convert carbs and sugar to energy instead of fat. She came to see me so that she could tell HER doctor she had been to a holistic nutritionist who couldn't help her and also suggested a toxic supplement.
It isn't any different in 2025. Cut, burn, poison. And poison means almost all prescription drugs.
Posted by: Kathy Sincere | June 09, 2025 at 01:25 PM
people know the basics of healthier eating
not a necessary gov task
Posted by: greyone | June 09, 2025 at 01:01 PM
Good morning to all! Spot on comments by Ms. Hayes. According to a basic Google search medical schools in the U.S. receive between 2%and 16% of their funding from pharmaceutical industries. One study from 2017had the funding at 28%. I think it is on the higher end. How many of us have been to the doctor's office, while a drug rep was there?
I remember the whispers of tell Dr. So and so we will send over the tickets. I will always remember that. Not to mention the clipboard with the latest pharmacy product on the back.
When I do have to go to the doctor I go to my employer' s wellness clinic. Plain clipboards. The doctor will recommend pharmaceutical products, I respectfully decline and the doctor is good with that. Have a great Monday! Blessings to all.
Posted by: Gerardo Martinez | June 09, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Why are we taxpayers funding medical schools at any level?
Nutritious foods are critically important to human health, but so is eliminating pharmaceutical poisoning, in the form of vaccines and resultant drugs. No amount of good food can undo the damage that vaccines cause.
Everyone, doctors included, needs to look at the ingredients in vaccines and ask, “Which of these is needed by the body, and which of these enhances health?” They will quickly and easily see that the answer is not one.
One must also understand that not all ingredients in vaccines are required to be listed, and that quality control and transparency are next to nil, so any specifics that are listed cannot be trusted to be accurate.
Posted by: Laura Hayes | June 09, 2025 at 07:27 AM