Are Physicians Good Candidates For Recommending Diet?

Background: Primary prevention status and goals in 2010 are promoting healthy weight and eating habits and dietary ma­nipula­tion considered in all reports to be the cornerstone of prevention and management of chronic diseases. Since in de­velop­ing countries physicians are in the front line of responding patients' questions regarding their diet, we decided to evalu­ate their necessary nutritional knowledge for accomplishing this mission and to identify consideration for improving the paucity of nutrition education and the nutrition literacy in medical training program, we did the same education in medi­cal students.Methods: Applied nutritional knowledge of 150 general, specialist and sub specialist physicians and 202 medical students was evaluated by structured self administrative questionnaire. Eighteen questions which could be self completed in less than 5 minutes were filled by each subject. Results: The percentage of physicians who gave dietary recommendations to their patients was 73% but the mean correct re­sponds to questions were 3.73±2.15 and 5.87±2.14 out of 14 questions in physicians and medical students respectively. Conclusions: Our data show deficient applied nutritional knowledge of physicians is one of   the main problems of hospital mal­nu­trition. As the same results were shown in medical students, this can not be due to forgetting what was learned but can be related to the quality of nutrition training. &nbsp

Prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its components in the Iranian adult population: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Context: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) increases the risk of most non-communicable diseases; gathering information about its prevalence can be very effective in formulating preventive strategies for metabolic diseases. There are many different studies about the prevalence of MetS in Iran, but the results and the study populations of these studies are very different; therefore, it is very important to have an overall estimation of its prevalence in Iran. Objectives: This study systematically reviewed the findings of all available studies on MetS in the adult Iranian population and estimated the overall prevalence of MetS in this population. Data Sources: International databases (Scopus, ISI Web of Science, and PubMed) were searched for papers published from January, 2000 to December, 2013 using medical subject headings (MeSH), Emtree, and related keywords (metabolic syndrome, dysmetabolic syndrome, cardiovascular syndrome, and insulin resistance syndrome) combined with the words "prevalence" and "Iran." The Farsi equivalent of these terms and all probable combinations were used to search Persian national databases (IranMedex, Magiran, SID, and Irandoc). Study Selection: All population-based studies and national surveys that reported the prevalence of MetS in healthy Iranian adults were included. Data Extraction: After quality assessment, data were extracted according to a standard protocol. Because of between-study heterogeneity, data were analyzed by the random effect method. Results: We recruited the data of 27 local studies and one national study. The overall estimation of MetS prevalence was 36.9 (95 CI: 32.7 - 41.2) based on the Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) criteria, 34.6 (95 CI: 31.7 - 37.6) according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), and 41.5 (95 CI: 29.8 - 53.2) based on the Joint Interim Societies (JIS) criteria. The prevalence of MetS determined by JIS was significantly higher than those determined by ATP III and IDF. The prevalence of MetS was 15.4 lower in men than in women (27.7 versus 43.1) based on the ATP III criteria, and it was 11.3 lower in men based on the IDF criteria; however according to the JIS criteria, it was 8.4 more prevalent in men. Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of MetS in the Iranian adult population, with large variations based on different measurement criteria. Therefore, prevention and control of MetS should be considered a priority. © 2015, Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal