Why Your Doctor's Nutrition Advice Is Probably Wrong (And It's Not Their Fault)
This post previews themes from my upcoming book "We're Not Sick, We're Being Sold" - an investigative look at how we've been misled about health and nutrition.
Last month, I sat across from my cardiologist staring at a calcium score of 450—meaning 92% of people my age had less arterial plaque than I did. I'd been on a statin for twenty years. Twenty years of following doctor's orders, taking my pills, avoiding the foods I was told would kill me.
His response? I needed a stronger statin.
Not curiosity about why two decades of cholesterol-lowering medication had failed to prevent the exact problem it was supposed to solve. Just a more powerful drug to chase the same failed strategy.
That's when I stopped asking what's wrong with me and started asking: What if the advice itself is wrong?
The Nutrition Education Gap
Here's something that might shock you: Most doctors receive virtually no training in clinical nutrition. According to research published in the International Journal of Health Sciences, clinical therapeutic nutrition is not taught in the vast majority of medical schools nor in post-graduate medical training programs—including specialties like gastroenterology and cardiology that are obviously impacted by dietary intake¹.
Think about that for a moment. The very professionals we trust with our health have received virtually no training in the thing that most directly impacts our health: what we eat.
This isn't a conspiracy—it's an institutional blind spot. As Johns Hopkins surgeon Dr. Marty Makary documented in "Blind Spots," the medical establishment has a well-documented history of institutional blind spots that can persist for decades, often harming patients in the process².
When Good Doctors Give Bad Advice
This creates a situation where well-meaning physicians end up giving nutrition advice based on:
Guidelines written by committees with pharmaceutical industry ties
Outdated information from medical school (if they received any nutrition education at all)
Conventional wisdom that hasn't been updated despite contradictory research
Fear of liability for recommending anything outside standard protocols
The result? Millions of people following medical advice that isn't just ineffective—it's often counterproductive.
The Pattern I Discovered
After my calcium scan wake-up call, I started investigating. Not as a doctor (I'm not one), but as an investigative journalist following the evidence trail. What I found was a consistent pattern across multiple health topics:
Step 1: Weak observational studies show correlations (not causation) Step 2: Industry-funded research amplifies findings that benefit commercial interests Step 3: Guidelines get written by panels with financial conflicts of interest Step 4: Media reports sensationalize the findings Step 5: Doctors prescribe based on guidelines, not underlying evidence quality Step 6: When patients don't improve, they're blamed for "noncompliance"
This pattern repeated across every major nutritional myth of the past 50 years.
The Questions Your Doctor Isn't Asking
When my cardiologist prescribed a stronger statin, he didn't ask:
Why did 20 years of the previous statin fail to prevent plaque buildup?
What role might insulin resistance play in cardiovascular disease?
How might inflammatory foods be contributing to arterial damage?
What does the research say about dietary interventions for heart disease?
These aren't unreasonable questions. They're just outside the scope of how most physicians are trained to think about health problems.
The Investigation That Changed Everything
My deep dive into nutritional research revealed something disturbing: many of the foundational studies underlying our dietary guidelines were funded by the very industries that benefited from the recommendations.
The sugar industry funded studies that blamed fat for heart disease. The processed food industry funded research that supported frequent eating and grain consumption. The pharmaceutical industry funded studies that medicalized normal aspects of human physiology.
Meanwhile, the foods humans thrived on for millennia—meat, eggs, natural fats—were systematically demonized based on weak correlations and industry-influenced research.
What This Means for You
I'm not suggesting you ignore your doctor or abandon medical care. What I'm suggesting is that you become an informed participant in your healthcare rather than a passive recipient of institutional wisdom.
Ask better questions:
What's the evidence quality behind this recommendation?
Who funded the research supporting this guideline?
What are the potential risks and benefits for someone with my specific situation?
Are there lifestyle interventions that might address the root cause rather than just managing symptoms?
The Path Forward
The good news? Once you understand how these myths were created and why they persist, you can't be fooled by them anymore. You can start making decisions based on evidence rather than marketing, on biology rather than ideology.
In my upcoming book "We're Not Sick, We're Being Sold," I'll take you through the investigative process that revealed how we've been systematically misled about health and nutrition—and more importantly, what you can do about it.
Because the truth is, we're not sick. We're being sold. But once you see the sales pitch for what it is, you can't be sold anymore.
References:
Vasquez, Alex. "Concerns About The Integrity of The Scientific Research Process—Focus On Recent Negative Publications Regarding Nutrition, Multivitamins, Fish Oil And Cardiovascular Disease." Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal, vol. 18, no. 3, 2019.
Makary, Marty. Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.
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