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What’s Missing in Medical Training? Nutrition. Here’s Why That Matters.

Posted on : June 17, 2025 by Hardy Nutritionals® No Comments

Insights from the JAMA Article on Nutrition’s Slow Integration Into Physician Education


Every day, patients show up with depression, fatigue, anxiety, burnout—and walk out with prescriptions, but no conversation about nutrition.

This isn’t negligence. It’s the result of a system that never taught most doctors how to talk about food in the first place.

At Hardy Nutritionals®, we’ve spent over two decades developing clinical-strength micronutrient formulas precisely because of that gap.

Now, a new article in JAMA underscores the same critical truth:

Nutrition is still barely addressed in medical training—even though it may be one of the most powerful therapeutic tools we have.

The Education Gap No One’s Talking About

In 1985, the National Research Council recommended a minimum of 25 hours of nutrition education in medical school.

Today? Most students receive just 19 hours—total.

Even more concerning: the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) doesn’t require nutrition training in most specialties.

That means most physicians graduate without the tools to address the nutritional root of what their patients are experiencing—whether it’s anxiety, depression, or insulin resistance.

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Some Medical Schools Are Pushing Back

Thankfully, a handful of programs are leading change. The JAMA article highlights innovations like:

  • USC’s Keck School of Medicine: where students learn to decode food labels and understand macronutrients—before cooking with patients in real time.
  • NYU Grossman School of Medicine: which launched a culinary medicine elective pairing lectures with hands-on kitchen training.

These programs are doing more than educating—they’re equipping future doctors to apply nutrition in real clinical care.


Why This Gap Matters—Especially for Mental Health

According to Dr. Stephen Devries (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health), poor diet is now the leading risk factor for death.

Yet physicians still receive more training in managing prescriptions than in understanding micronutrient biochemistry—or the role food plays in brain function.

No wonder so many patients are turning elsewhere.

At Hardy Nutritionals®, we work closely with clinicians using Daily Essential Nutrients (DEN) to support patients dealing with:

  • Mood and anxiety-related disorders (bipolar disorder, ADHD, autism spectrum, OCD, anxiety disorders)*
  • Medication side effects*
  • Emotional fatigue, burnout, and anxiety*
  • Brain cell degeneration*
  • Sleep, attention, and focus issues*
  • Chronic stress*
  • Nutritional insufficiencies—especially the daily shortfall of essential micronutrients the brain needs to function optimally*

Where prescriptions plateau, nutrition—especially broad-spectrum micronutrient support—often breaks through.

At Hardy, Nutrition Isn’t Optional. It’s Foundational.

While most U.S. medical schools continue to treat nutrition as an afterthought, we’ve built our entire clinical approach around it.

Daily Essential Nutrients delivers over 40 essential vitamins, minerals, and cofactors in therapeutic doses—designed to target the systems most affected by stress, trauma, and chronic depletion.

It’s used in independent research, trusted by practitioners, and grounded in one simple truth:

The brain cannot heal if it doesn’t have what it needs to function.

What Needs to Change?

The JAMA article ends with an urgent call for reform. Electives and special tracks aren’t enough. Nutrition must be integrated into core medical education.

We agree. Hardy Nutritionals® exists because the science on nutrition and mental health is already strong—and patients can’t afford to wait.

We’re here to bridge the gap between what research shows… and what patients actually receive.


Supporting the Change We Want to See

To help drive this transformation, we offer personalized, free consultations and training for Health Professionals interested in incorporating micronutrient therapy into their clinical practice.

The future of mental health support demands more than prescriptions. We're here to equip professionals with the tools—and training—they need to deliver it.


Ready to Explore the Research?

Hardy Nutritionals® multivitamin-mineral products are powered by our proprietary NutraTek™ mineral delivery technology, which combines each mineral with specialized organic molecules—just like nature—to optimize absorption and distribution to body cells. Our flagship supplement, Daily Essential Nutrients, is widely considered to be the most research-backed micronutrient treatment.
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