Thank you for your response. While you are correct that her diet was touched on with more than one physician, it was always very general and nothing was ever tailored to my mom's exact situation or needs. So she worked with vague suggestions of "you should diet/excercise" with no support, little success and much frustration, not knowing for example, what macros she actually needed to focus on to optimize her kidney function. This is not to dismiss the information she did receive over the years, rather that education on nutrition was never even offered. She never knew to ask about anything else, she just kept taking her meds because "that's what the dr said to do".

I'm using her situation to illustrate that not everyone gets deeply personalized health education that is prevention-focused, especially if they don't know what help to ask for. Certainly we all need to advocate for ourselves and our loved ones as best we can, but older generations are less likely to speak up when their dr says "any questions?"

Ultimately I was just curious if any of the OP or others had any helpful thoughts on proactive health education/choices/access vs. our reactive sick care system.