Further Reading
Overview
Lifestyle modifications have been included in healthcare recommendations for decades but have typically been seen as supplementary measures and frequently regarded as optional. Lifestyle Medicine is a holistic approach in which the six areas that have been shown to be integral to overall health and wellbeing (nutrition , physical exercise, stress reduction, sleep, avoiding substance use, and social connection are addressed in order to benefit the entire individual body and mind). Interventions are often inexpensive and typically have no negative side effects.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6367881/
Weight Management
Recently, a systematic review and meta-analysis of 34 randomized controlled trials by Madigan et al (2022), concluded that behavioral weight management interventions for adults with obesity delivered in primary care are effective for weight loss and could be offered to the public. These interventions should be considered part of the services offered to help people manage their weight. A greater number of interactions between patients and healthcare professionals led to more weight loss. Primary care practitioners should be provided with sufficient training in order to apply these strategies to assist patients to achieve a healthy weight.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35636762/
Anxiety
Another meta-analysis by Wong et al (2022), which included a total of 53 randomized controlled trials with 18,894 participants, provided evidence for the positive effects of multicomponent Lifestyle Medicine interventions for anxiety symptoms. The improved understanding of the role of unhealthy lifestyles in the development and perpetuation of anxiety symptoms has sparked interest in Lifestyle Medicine as a first-line therapy to address the underlying causes of this disease. A majority of multicomponent Lifestyle Medicine interventions were delivered by highly trained health professionals. The authors encourage the continued development and provision of a wide variety of Lifestyle Medicine interventions in order to meet diverse individual needs.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35523299/
Medical Education
There is now a large body of evidence showing that when proper diet and physical activity are implemented, and tobacco use, alcohol misuse, and stress are addressed, the human body has a remarkable capacity to heal itself. Primary care is an effective and appropriate place to address lifestyle-related conditions, however, physician training in Lifestyle Medicine is scarce or nonexistent. Introduced by the American College of Preventive Medicine and released by the American Medical Association House of Delegates in 2017, Resolution 959 (I-17) supports policies and mechanisms that incentivize and/or provide the inclusion of Lifestyle Medicine education in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education.
Through a transformation of the medical curriculum and development of new policies with a focus on lifestyle medicine education, a new healthcare model could be successful in combatting noncommunicable chronic diseases, by equipping medical practitioners with the necessary tools to help patients in health behaviour change, thus leading to improved patient health and wellbeing.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31003604/
Precision Medicine
Lifestyle Medicine has three simple goals for the individual: to remain healthy as long as possible, to remain independent as long as possible, and to live as long as possible. Lifestyle Medicine recognizes, based on overwhelming evidence, that most chronic disease results from lifestyle factors. Precision medicine could potentially be of value to lifestyle medicine in establishing a causal basis for the known effectiveness of lifestyle recommendations, with a motivating effect for adopting lifestyle changes at an earlier age and individualizing lifestyle recommendations. The future of Lifestyle Medicine is humanistic rather than technological. It needs to focus on how more people can be induced to adopt a healthy lifestyle and how such a lifestyle can be sustained and become habitual. Lifestyle medicine’s future may ultimately lie in individualizing support so that adopted lifestyle behaviors become permanent rather than transient. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7092395/
Interested in further reading?
Please search in the library dedicated to Lifestyle medicine by clicking here.
The Brief Project:
The manual to integrate brief interventions for noncommunicable disease risk factors in primary care. WHO Europe; 2022
Brief interventions are recognized by WHO as an effective measure to help people quit tobacco, reduce or stop alcohol use and increase physical activity. They can also help to achieve and maintain healthy eating behaviours and manage weight for those living with overweight and obesity. Brief interventions can translate into significant health benefits at population level when systematically applied to a large proportion of people. The uptake of these interventions in the WHO European Region, however, remains low. This manual is an integral part of the WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases BRIEF project. The manual provides a guide to implementing brief intervention programs in primary care settings, highlighting facilitators and barriers to implementation. It emphasizes an integrated approach to brief interventions, dealing with all four main behavioural risk factors – tobacco use, alcohol use, unhealthy eating and physical inactivity – and the physiological risk factor of increased body mass index. The manual is in three parts: Part 1 describes the background and approaches to implementing primary care-based brief intervention programs; Part 2 consists of annexes that present flow diagrams and more detailed guidance for delivery of brief interventions by primary care providers; and Part 3 presents supplementary materials that set out behavioural and cultural insights considerations on the use of brief interventions and examples of work being done on brief interventions in the Region.
To access the publication please click here.
Wieghtloss Management Maintenance
A Presentation by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Özden Gökdemir Izmir University of Economics / Faculty of Medicine