If you are a basketball fan who recently watched Portland Trail Blazers’ Enes Kanter play against the Warriors in the western NBA semi-finals, you may have heard about Ramadan fasting. But most Americans haven’t — and that includes clinicians.
“Even those clinicians who are aware of Ramadan often do not fully understand the nuances of fasting,” explains Rania Awaad, MD, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and the director of the Muslims and Mental Health Lab at Stanford. “For example, there is no oral intake from sunup to sundown of food, liquids and also medications. For clinicians who may be alarmed by this, it’s important to remember that fasting is globally practiced safely by adjusting the timing and dosing of medications and by following best practices like consuming enough fluids to rehydrate after the fast.”
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which is 11 days shorter than the solar year. This year in the U.S., it began on May 5 and ends on June 4. During Ramadan, many of the nearly two billion Muslims around the world fast during the sunlight hours as a means of expressing self-control, gratitude and compassion for those in need.
Several groups are exempted from this religious requirement — including pregnant women, children, the elderly and people who are acutely or chronically ill — but some fast anyway because of the spiritual significance, Awaad says.
“Ramadan is a very spiritual and communal month. So when clinicians immediately advise their patients not to fast, they may not realize they’re inadvertently isolating their patients from the broader community and support system,” Awaad says. She notes this is particularly important for patients with mental health disorders.
Awaad says she strongly advises clinicians to encourage their patients to seek a dual consultation with both a faith leader and medical professional at places like the Khalil Center, a professional counseling center specializing in Muslim mental health. Alternatively, patients observing Ramadan can consult both their faith leader and physician individually and help facilitate a consultation between both entities.
“Without a holistic treatment plan, patients are either fasting when they shouldn’t be — not taking their medications without telling their health care provider — or they are potentially not partaking in Ramadan when they can be,” Awaad says.
In a recent editorial in The Lancet Psychiatry, Awaad and her colleagues outline more clinical suggestions on the safety and advisability of Ramadan fasting that she hopes physicians will consider. For example, the editorial suggests that physicians working with patients with eating disorders should discuss the risks and benefits of fasting and consider close follow-up in this period and in the months following.
But the first step is knowing whether patients are Muslim. By co-teaching the “Culture and Religion in Psychiatry” class, Awaad says she helps Stanford psychiatry residents become comfortable asking about their patients’ religion, in the same way they are trained to ask other sensitive questions like sexual orientation.
“If we miss that our patient draws strength and support from their religion, then we miss the opportunity to support them holistically by incorporating their faith leader or faith community into their treatment plans,” Awaad explains. “The last Gallop poll revealed 87 percent of Americans believe in God, so it’s important to incorporate this into our patient care.”
This is a reposting of my Scope blog story, courtesy of Stanford School of Medicine.
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