Trying to get Americans to give up fatty diets to reduce heart disease is not always a losing cause, as some may think.
In fact, a new study finds, patients whose doctors had given them a stricter low-fat diet changed their eating habits more than patients whose doctors made only modest recommendations."Some doctors are reluctant to recommend very low-fat diets or vegetarian diets because they presume patients won't follow them," said Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and lead author of the study in the Archives of Family Medicine. "Just the opposite is true. The more dietary change the doctor recommends, the more change patients make."
The study also found that physicians who get family members involved and schedule group sessions for patients are more successful. "It is time for doctors to unapologetically promote low-fat and vegetarian diets, just as they now encourage patients to stop smoking," Barnard said. "We have long known that they work."