Manifesto on Nutrition Education in Medical Schools

“The way to organise these themes in the curriculum, also including novel teaching tools, internet resources and e-learning, will depend on each University centre, taking into consideration the different possible models of teaching (parallel, integrated or case-solving based), the availability of teachers and the distribution of time and credits with the rest of teaching subjects” the Manifesto says.

Although the teaching of nutrition is an essential element of medical training, a recent survey (1) has shown that there is an extreme variability in the educational standards of this subject in medical schools worldwide. As a consequence, there are differences in the access and quality of treatments received by patients.

Worldwide, more than 2 billion adults are overweight, 600 million obese and 462 million malnourished. These conditions contribute to 60% of cardiovascular death and 35% of tumor death. Even less known is that 35% of hospitalised patients develop disease-related malnutrition, a real ‘disease in a disease’.

“Weight loss in chronic, oncological, elderly and frail patients is an underestimated and under-diagnosed problem” Professor Rocco Barazzoni, ESPEN Chairman, explains. “Loss of weight and muscle mass leads to a higher rate of complications, worse response to therapies, higher mortality and increase in healthcare expenditures. This occurs in spite of the well documented positive and cost-effective impact of nutritional therapy on treatment side effects and disease outcomes.

“Implementing training is urgent” echoes Professor Maurizio Muscaritoli, Coordinator of the NEMS initiative together with the Spanish Professor Cristina Cuerda. “Learning nutrition is mandatory for future doctors. Seeking political support, forming ad hoc committees for the development of curricula and teaching modalities are among the key factors to allow for the implementation of nutrition training in universities”