Exam Room Nutrition: Practical Nutrition for Healthcare Professionals
Nutrition advice is everywhere. Your patients need help sorting through misinformation, and you need practical guidance for communicating nutrition clearly and compassionately. Exam Room Nutrition is the podcast for physician associates, registered dietitians, and healthcare professionals who want to stay current on nutrition and feel more confident counseling patients. Hosted by Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN, each episode breaks down evidence-based topics including pediatric nutrition, weight management, diabetes, supplements, sports nutrition, and more. You’ll learn how to translate the evidence into realistic recommendations without judgment, shame, or overwhelming your patients.
Whether you are a PA strengthening your nutrition knowledge or an RD sharpening your counseling skills, Exam Room Nutrition will help you bring practical, compassionate nutrition care into every patient conversation.
Exam Room Nutrition: Practical Nutrition for Healthcare Professionals
143 | Analyze Nutrition Studies Like a Scientist
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Randomized controlled trials. Cohort studies. Abstracts. Methods sections.
If your brain starts spinning just hearing those words, you’re not alone.
In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Carlene Starck, a protein biochemist and nutrition scientist, to help clinicians who aren’t researchers learn how to spot high-quality research in a world full of misinformation.
Together, we walk through how a researcher evaluates a paper, what matters, what doesn’t, and why social media influencers often get the science wrong. We even unpack a real paper that went viral online to show how misleading conclusions can spread when studies are misquoted or misunderstood.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- A clear explanation and examples of the hierarchy of evidence
- What information you can (and can’t) get from an abstract
- Why the methods section matters (even though many of us skip it)
- How sample size, study design, and bias affect conclusions
- A simple framework for quickly assessing whether a paper is high quality
Here's the article we analyzed: A prospective birth cohort study on cord blood folate subtypes and risk of autism spectrum disorder - PubMed
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Disclaimer: This podcast is a collection of ideas, strategies, and opinions of the author(s). Its goal is to provide useful information on each of the topics shared within. It is not intended to provide medical, health, or professional consultation or to diagnosis-specific weight or feeding challenges. The author(s) advises the reader to always consult with appropriate health, medical, and professional consultants for support for individual children and family situations. The author(s) do not take responsibility for the personal or other risks, loss, or liability incurred as a direct or indirect consequence of the application or use of information provided. All opinions stated in this podcast are my own and do not reflect the opinions of my employer.
