In medical school, aspiring doctors learn a lot more about drugs and treating the symptoms of disease, rather than how to prevent disease in the first place. It’s likely that the nutrition and fitness courses they are required to take in medical school don’t offer a comprehensive solution to the prevention of disease.

Nikhil Rao wrote in his article What Your Doc Doesn’t Know About Weightlifting (article here):

medical education is extremely intense, and extremely broad. It has to be. That said, there is a lot it doesn’t cover. We learn the atomic structure of every amino acid (most of us promptly forget all of this after the biochemistry final). We learn the equations for cardiovascular physiology. We learn the branches of every nerve, the origin and attachment for every muscle in the human body.

But we don’t learn the basics of healthy nutrition. We don’t learn about cardiovascular and musculoskeletal adaptations and responses to exercise. We don’t learn about how insulin facilitates the utilization of protein and creatine.

Rao makes a good point in his article that doctors are taught about how to treat the symptoms of disease, usually with drugs and/or surgery, but they are NOT taught about how to prevent it through healthy lifestyle strategies like physical activity and a healthy diet.

Now, wouldn’t it make sense that our culture should place a stronger emphasis on the study, education, and practice surrounding the topic of DISEASE PREVENTION, rather than disease treatment? You would think so, but it’s not the case – and that’s a story much too long for this article to tell. Basically, my opinion is that it all boils down to the love of money, and how that contributes to the medical industry.

Instead, most of our culture’s resources are spent on the research and practice of DISEASE TREATMENT, not prevention. Now, I see a similar theme present in the fitness industry – except it’s not doctors that are to blame, it’s personal trainers.
Continue reading Your Personal Trainer Behaves Like a Doctor – my revelation about the fitness industry