Medical students want more nutrition info

[Sleepybunny]

Hi,

I saw a story on BBC news website about medical students wanting to know more about nutrition. I thought great...I wish doctors knew more about b12.

bbc.co.uk/news/health

[Gambit62 Administrator]

Unfortunately I doubt it will mean that they end up understanding more about B12 as it seems to be about what is generally the best food to eat and getting a healthy life-style to avoid diseases associated with poor diet and lack of exercise.

The bit of B12 knowledge that medics tend to fall down on is the biochemistry that is needed to understand that a) B12 deficiency isn't about anaemia b) serum B12 doesn't tell the whole picture, particularly after treatment has started ... and then there's the statistics background needed to understand that test results don't tell the whole story so you do actually need to talk to your patient throughout treatment and listen to what they are telling you.

[deniseinmilden]

Everything has to start somewhere and, who knows, they might find out that vitamins are part of releasing energy so required as part of obesity control...

In time it may lead in the right direction! Fingers crossed 🤞.

[SORRELHIPPO]

Sounds a good idea, but as the GP side of things (a first port of call supposedly the "gatekeeper") in the UK is a generalist, I would settle for the Dietitians, who are meant to be experts on diet and nutrition, knowing the science behind the food/needs of vits etc, if they were up to date on this, GPs could refer to them.