Medical school incorporates plant-based education

Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan is the first school in the U.S to make plant-based nutrition a required part of their curriculum for first-year medical students. 

Due to the large amount of benefits a plant-based diet can have for a person, the school wanted to recognize that and incorporate it into the curriculum. Very little of medical school is spent on nutrition, making this a weak spot in the future physician’s knowledge base. 

The new course is named “Rooting for Wellness”and ties in how certain diets can affect health conditions and overall wellness. Some of the topics covered in the class are cooking demonstrations, guest speakers, and sources of plant-based nutrition. 

Preventative medicine highly recommends using a whole-foods, unprocessed, and plant-based lifestyle to prevent many diseases that are running rampant in the U.S: diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. 

With medical students learning about this diet and lifestyle now in school, it will make them more likely to prescribe lifestyle changes in the future when they are physicians. 

Wayne State University is hoping that they are setting the new standard for medical schools and that more will jump on the chance to incorporate plant-based nutrition into their curriculum.  

Article written by Kristin Mattia- United States