The situation has significantly improved over the last few decades, but one of the sad facts of life is that many medical professionals are still not as well versed as they should be on the topic of nutrition, the benefits of many supplements, and a number of related matters. Fortunately, you have the power to keep yourself educated and do what you think is best for your overall health.

After all, some things just make sense. Consuming fresh fruits and vegetables instead of highly processed sugar and fat-laden items seems like a no-brainer, especially after you’ve examined the ingredient list on many products; they sound more like an industrial shopping list than anything you’d ever want to eat. The same applies to whole grains as opposed to highly processed breads, pastas, and rice-based products. Also, we all know that staying on a diet that is not too high in calories has enormous benefits — no doctor we know of would disagree with us there.

As for supplements, while they largely remain controversial among the medical scrubs wearers of the world, those of us in the world of natural health know how terribly useful they can be. Countless people have fought the impact of arthritis using condroiten and glucosamine. Others have beaten down depression and avoided the side effects of psychoactive drugs by taking St. John’s wort, which clearly seems to be nature’s most widely used antidepressant. There are many other examples.

To be perfectly fair to our friends in the medical establishment, many of them are getting very hip to the importance of a more natural diet and the very benefits of at least some supplements. When shopping for doctors — and you should shop around for one if you can — try to select one who is at least open to the benefits of a healthily natural diet and intelligent supplementation. Trust us, most people who wear medical scrubs to work are actually quite smart, the trick is to find someone who’s also open to ideas they might not have been taught in medical school.