DIET -- brilliant 18 minute TED talk, free on YouTube

NanoSecond said:

More on Diet and Nutrition

Many thanks Tex,

For those of you who may not be ACOR members, I also added a follow up:

There is a striking theme that has emerged in regards to most of the nutritional and metabolic research that I have found to be of value (and tried to put in practice for myself).  Most of it has originated from medical professionals who either have had to personally deal with contracting a chronic disease themselves (be it cancer, MS, cardiovascular, metabolic syndrome, etc.) or who had become disenchanted with a lack of long-term success using only "mainstream" drug therapies in their practice.

In other words, these were medical experts who were willing to put the interests of their patients first - in many cases because they themselves found they had became the patient!  All of them had concluded that that prevention of chronic disease was not only possible - but desirable.  And that in every case it begins (and ends) by paying attention to proper nutrition. [This was not to downplay the importance of mainstream therapies - they all still use them - but then they looked to go much further].

We can certainly debate about what "proper" nutrition is.  But what we should not do is ignore it. And that mandate, in particular, applies to all the doctors that we rely on.  [That is my humble opinion, of course.]

I'll expand Neil's theme a bit further. 

The reason that many doctors who become patients are obliged to find their own way, going beyond the treatments they're familiar with, is that there are two conspicuous holes in the standard programmes of medical education.  Very little, if anything, is taught about mental health or nutrition - two of the most important areas of all for the medical profession.  Our nations' health and standards of care are blighted as a consequence but precious little seems to be in train to rectify these shortcomings.  

The main way in which the problem is addressed is to acknowledge that we have to have generalists and specialists, but at the cost of having those in the front line woefully ignorant in these crucial areas.