News & Media
New Interactive online course ups physicians' nutrition knowledge, supports patients in diabetes prevention
Nutrition training through modules
Research reveals that medical schools provide less than 20 hours of nutrition training, and very little continuing medical education (CME) that's relevant is offered. To fill in the gap, the American Medical Association partnered with the Gaples Institute for Integrative Cardiology to develop a three-hour interactive course called Nutrition Science for Health and Longevity: What Every Physician Needs to Know.
The course provides evidence-based information, encourages a team approach and offers tools necessary to make referrals to nutrition professionals. Broken up into four modules of 45 minutes each, the course addresses the following topics:
- Module 1: Why does nutrition matter to your patients?
- Module 2: Dietary fats and patient health
- Module 3: Helping your patients understand carbohydrates and protein
- Module 4: Making nutrition counseling work in a busy practice
The first three modules address core nutrition concepts while the fourth module offers practical tools for implementation and then uses realistic patient scenarios to test your knowledge and provide customized feedback. Links to the original studies are also provided, which allows you to dig deeper in the materials, and all the modules offer a printable summary sheet of each module to help you put the education into practice.
Upon completion of the course, physicians earn 3 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™.
Additional tools to support patients
Screening tools can help you identify your patients who have prediabetes. Once you've identified these patients, you can begin the conversation on nutrition with them and help refer them to a DPP to get the necessary support they need to make lifestyle changes.
Some tools physicians may find useful include:
- The 1-minute online prediabetes risk test, which provides fast results and explains the benefits to joining a lifestyle change program along with tips
- The Prevent Diabetes STAT toolkit, which helps health care teams to screen, test and act to refer patients with prediabetes to DPPs
- A prediabetes toolkit, which provides printable materials and shareable ideas for social media to spread awareness around prediabetes and what can be done about it
Most chronic diseases can in part be prevented by eating a healthy diet. In fact, the No. 1 contributing factor to premature death and disability in the United States is poor nutrition. Equip yourself with the knowledge and tools you need to meet this challenge head on and partner with patients on chronic disease prevention.