Heart health is influenced by diet, and although cardiologists overwhelmingly believe their role includes delivering basic nutrition information to patients, fewer than one-third describe their nutrition knowledge as "mostly up to date" or better, a new study finds.
The study, called "A Deficiency of Nutrition Education and Practice in Cardiology," published in The American Journal of Medicine, included survey responses from 930 cardiologists, fellows-in-training and cardiovascular team members about their dietary habits, history of nutrition education and attitudes regarding nutrition interventions.
"Although cardiovascular guidelines describe nutrition as a foundation of care, neither education nor practice among cardiologists and cardiovascular team members reflect that priority," said lead author Stephen Devries, MD, executive director of Gaples Institute for Integrative Cardiology. "While the report notes serious deficiencies, it highlights tremendous opportunities to improve cardiovascular care, save lives and reduce healthcare costs. We hope these findings serve as a call to action for much greater emphasis on nutrition in the training and practice of cardiovascular specialists."
Nearly all respondents — 90 percent — reported receiving minimal or no nutrition education during their cardiovascular fellowship training, 59 percent reported no nutrition education during internal medicine training and 31 percent reported no nutrition education in medical school.
And although about 90 percent of respondents believe "dietary interventions are likely to provide substantial additional benefit to patients with cardiovascular disease who adhere to guideline-based pharmacologic therapy," nearly two-thirds of cardiologists said they discuss nutrition with patients for just three minutes or less per visit, according to the study.
"Using nutrition as medicine is probably one of the most cost effective ways to treat disease but is incredibly underutilized by healthcare providers," said Andrew Freeman, MD, a cardiologist at National Jewish Health in Denver, and one of the study's co-authors. "If we could empower healthcare providers with information on how to implement this in daily practice, we could transform healthcare rapidly, prevent healthcare cost explosions, and reduce morbidity and mortality."