(HealthScoutNews) -- Nutrition counseling is an important ingredient in the health of high-risk patients, yet many of them don't receive it and their health suffers as a result.

That's the conslusion of a study in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

"The need for nutrition counseling is pressing in light of the epidemic of chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity and hyperlipidemia (excessive fat content in the blood)," says study author Dr. Charles B. Eaton, of Brown Medical School and the Center for Primary Care and Prevention at Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island.

Eaton says diet changes can reduce the risk of death and illness. An estimated 300,000 to 800,000 deaths every year are the result of nutrition-related diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, obesity and diabetes.

For this study, research nurses observed 3,475 patient visits to 138 Ohio doctors. The nurses administered a questionnaire to the patients after the doctor visit.

About a quarter of the patients said they received nutrition counseling during the doctor visit. Patients with an acute illness were less likely to receive nutrition counseling (17 percent), compared to patients with chronic diseases (30 percent).

The study notes that the number of people with chronic diseases who received nutrition counseling falls short of the Healthy People 2010 national nutritional objectives, which recommend that nutrition counseling be done in 75 percent of doctor visits where people have hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

The researchers also found doctors spent an average of less than a minute on nutrition counseling with their patients. That suggests "that more in-depth nutrition counseling visits will need to occur outside a typical primary-care office visit," Eaton says.

That could be done by registered dieticians or by training physicians to offer their patients tailored nutrition messages, supplemented with written educational materials.

More information

The New York Online Access to Health has a complete guide to nutrition.

Reference Source 101

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