%0 Journal Article
%T Inadequate physician knowledge of the effects of diet on blood lipids and lipoproteins.
%A Mary Flynn
%A Christopher Sciamanna
%A Kevin Vigilante
%J Nutrition Journal
%D 2003
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1475-2891-2-19
%X Anonymous mailed dietary knowledge surveys to 6000 randomly selected physicians in the United States licensed in either Internal Medicine or Cardiology.Response rate: 16% (n = 639). Half of the physicians did not know that canola oil and 26% did not know olive oil were good sources of monounsaturated fat. Ninety-three percent (84% of cardiologists vs. 96% of internists; p < 0.001) did not know that a low-fat diet, in general, would increase blood triglycerides. Approximately three-quarters (70% of cardiologists vs. 77% of internists; p < 0.01) did not know a low-fat diet would decrease HDL-c and almost half (45%) thought that a low-fat diet would not change HDL-c.If physicians are to implement dietary and cholesterol management guidelines, they will likely need to become more knowledgeable about nutrition.Diet modification is recommended by the Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (ATP3) as the initial treatment to lower blood cholesterol [1]. It is the physician's responsibility, according the ATP3, to encourage patients with elevated cholesterol to initiate a Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes Diet (TLC). The TLC diet recommends a range for the percent of calories from various sources including saturated fat (<7), total fat (25¨C35), and carbohydrate (50¨C60) [1]. Physicians' ability to effectively counsel patients to adopt a TLC diet, however, has never been examined. One of the major changes to ATP3 (v. ATP2) is to advocate lowering triglycerides, as a secondary target to lowering LDL, for persons with triglycerides (TG) >200 mg/dl. In this study, we set out to examine physician's understanding of basic nutritional physiology underlying recommendations in the TLC diet, particularly those recommendations specific to triglycerides, as triglycerides are a new prevention treatment target.A random sampling mailing list of 6000 physicians licensed in the United States stratified to include physicians licensed in either Internal Medicine or Cardiology wa
%U http://www.nutritionj.com/content/2/1/19