It is safe to try something because the person recommending it has tried it? On Instagram @AndreaHardyRD, I share how providing nutrition advice without being a trained health professional is dangerous and irresponsible!
This story made me cringe 😵
The story goes, someone, providing nutrition advice outside their scope, was prescribing a wide variety of supplements to a patient.
When the patient asked about the supplement regime (what was necessary, what wasn’t, how do we know it works), the response was ‘well I wouldn’t recommend anything I haven’t tried myself’ as though that was evidence enough.
A cardiologist wouldn’t base recommendations for cardiac surgery on that advice.
Your dentist wouldn’t recommend a root canal on that advice.
But it sure makes nutrition advice sound more credible!
Why?
Because nutrition *feels* really benign. Over the counter supplements can *feel* really safe because you can buy them without any barriers right?
While there are a lot of things I’ve explored as a dietitian (I’m a big believer that if safe, my staff should TRY the Low FODMAP diet before teaching it to a patient to understand the challenges) it certainly isn’t my answer to a patient asking for evidence.
It wouldn’t even cross my mind at all – because my experience when it comes to providing safe, evidence-based advice, is a drop in the bucket compared to the research, done properly to suggest whether something might be effective or not for a patient.
Soooooo long story short, you can add this to your list of nutrition advice red-flags now!
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