Abstract
Abstract: Introduction: The role of nutrition in medicine has changed from a passive function, from an adjuvant therapy, to a proactive and sophisticated therapy that prevents various health problems and changes the natural history of the disease. Recent studies show up that medical education does not sufficiently and efficiently address the patient’s nutritional aspects, thus training physicians who are not confident in providing nutritional care to their patients. This study aimed to analyze and describe scientific studies that have evaluated nutrition education in medical schools, seeking within this context to find nutrition topics important for undergraduate medical education. Methods: This research was conducted through a cross-sectional, descriptive, scoping review after searching for synonyms using MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) and DeCS (Health Sciences Descriptors) tools. Results: We initially found 1.057 publications that underwent sequential screening until reaching a total of 16 articles, which achieved the scope of this research. Most articles are from the United States of America (50%), assessed a total of 860 medical students and 243 medical schools using different approaches regarding the teaching of nutrition. Final considerations: In this review, we have shown that despite several studies ratifying the well-established association between nutrition and prevention/treatment of diseases that require outpatient care, or at the hospital level, nutrition education in undergraduate medical school has not accompanied this evidence and, for many years, the subject has been underestimated. In Brazil, no studies were found on this topic with the used descriptors.
Highlights
The role of nutrition in medicine has changed from a passive function, from an adjuvant therapy, to a proactive and sophisticated therapy that prevents various health problems and changes the natural history of the disease
Considering that the most accepted hypothesis for this medical insecurity in prescribing the diet is the insufficient teaching of this subject in the curriculum of the undergraduate medical course, this work aims to investigate the teaching of nutrition in medical schools according to the literature
As for the formulas used for the study and their respective Boolean operators, they were carried out in three different ways: :“Nutrition” AND “Medical Education” OR “Medical School” AND “Curriculum” AND “Nutrition Science” AND “Nutrition Therapy”, published in the last 10 years, involving human beings, written in English, Portuguese and Spanish; “Nutrition” AND “Medical Education” OR “Medical School” AND “Curriculum” AND “Nutrition Science” AND “Nutrition Therapy”, with a 10-year time filter and “Nutrição” AND “Educação Médica” OR “Escolas Médicas” AND “Currículo” AND “Ciências Nutricionais” AND “Terapia Nutricional”
Summary
The role of nutrition in medicine has changed from a passive function, from an adjuvant therapy, to a proactive and sophisticated therapy that prevents various health problems and changes the natural history of the disease. A study published in 2016 reported atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease as the main cause of preventable death in the United States of America (USA) and that dietary factors have shown to reduce the morbidity and mortality of this type of pathology[7]. Other chronic pathologies, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure are strongly influenced by nutritional practices[8]. Malnourished patients remain hospitalized for longer periods, suffer from impaired respiratory and cardiac functions, decreased immune function and higher rates of morbidity and mortality[9]
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