You may not see doctors rioting in the streets about FTC censorship of dietary supplements, but the day is sure to come. In fact, the FTC is not without its critics from that front and studies show that doctors are more behind the use of supplements than you might think. In fact, as a group, they probably take more supplements than others.

According to the “Life … supplemented” Healthcare Professionals Impact Study, 72% of physicians and 89 percent of nurses personally use vitamin, mineral, herbal and other supplements. The study also revealed that 79% of physicians and 82% of nurses also recommend supplements to their patients.

“Life … supplemented” was conducted on 1,177 healthcare professionals, including 300 primary care physicians, 600 specialists, and 277 registered nurses and nurse practitioners.

Another significant finding was the number of doctors who actual counsel their patients on the use of supplements – a mere 25%, far below the percentage of doctors who recommend and take supplements themselves.

Why don’t more doctors counsel their patients on the use of supplements? According to Paula Gardiner, M.D., an assistant professor at Boston University Medical Center, who has conducted several surveys on the use of dietary supplements by physicians and is a member of the study’s physician advisor team, additional research is needed, as well as more education for doctors: “It is critical to better understand how healthcare professionals recommend dietary supplements to their patients and how we can support educational initiatives to encourage dialogue between HCPs (health care professionals) and their patients about the proper use of dietary supplements.” 

Let’s hope medical schools step up to the plate on that one.

A recent study conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill asked nutrition educators about the details of nutrition instruction in more than 100 U.S. medical schools. Of those, only one-quarter of the schools offered even the minimum of 25 hours recommended for the under-graduate curriculum by the National Academy of Sciences in 1985.

Six years ago, almost 40% of offered 25 hours; so, at a time when the nation’s health has reached a crisis point, nutrition instruction has declined.

Most of the remaining medical schools had at least some nutritional instruction on the curriculum, but four medical schools thought that the subject of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids and other substances, and how they work together to enable our bodies and systems to function and maintain health, was so unimportant they made nutrition instruction optional – not even required.

It is obvious from the number of primary care physicians, specialists and nurses taking and recommending supplements that this paltry level of nutrition education is not what health care professionals want.

In the absence of nutrition education and the training needed to counsel their patients on diet and supplements adequately, many doctors are, and will continue to be, forced to simply relieve their patients’ symptoms with drugs.

Doctors want to make their patients healthy, they don’t want to simply mask or ‘manage’ conditions with drugs. 

FTC censorship of dietary supplements makes it difficult for doctors to do their job.

Whether you believe in Darwin or the Divine, it is clear that ‘Mother Nature’ had a plan. The earth generally provides what we need. The nutrients and even natural medicines in the soil, plants, animals, water and so on, were obviously intended to sustain life, our lives, on this planet.

We have been systematically stripping the earth of those health-giving resources, while at the same time polluting our food and water supply with harmful chemicals and processing our food so heavily that it bears little, if any, resemblance to its natural counterpart.

Do these still supply what we need for optimum health? Actually, no. In fact, they do the exact opposite. They make us sick.

To get well, and stay well, we need supplements, as well as a good diet of food that is not loaded with chemicals. Doctors have a right to be educated in this field. And we have a right to tell them what we know.

If someone knows of a supplement, or a food, that may, even just may, help you be healthier, your doctor probably wants to know about it. Will FTC censorship stop them from getting the information they need to help their patients??

Don’t let FTC censorship rob your doctor, or you, of the right to know this vital information, and the right to make it known to others.

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