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Nutrition, Exercise: Medical Schools Boost Teaching of Healthy Behaviors to Fight Chronic Disease

An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure, but medical schools have traditionally given little weight to instruction on how to help patients live healthier lives.

The future could look different as schools and residency training programs have begun to embrace a field known as lifestyle medicine, weaving teaching on nutrition, exercise and other healthy behaviors into the core curriculum of medical education. This new push aims to provide doctors with tools to tackle chronic but often preventable conditions such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes that affect six in ten adults in the U.S.

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Articles of Interest

From Infectious Diseases to Lifestyle Medicine: My Personal Journey

How does an infectious disease physician evolve into a passionate advocate and practitioner of lifestyle medicine? Well, in truth, it was 2 separate life experiences, one personal and one professional (and perhaps a dose of insanity), that led to my metamorphosis. The unconventional decision to leave behind a sound and lucrative career to embark on the unknown requires a bit of irrationality.

How One Physician Rediscovered Her Passion Through Lifestyle Medicine

Endocrinologist Dr. Mahima Gulati was dissatisfied and on the path to burn out until a discovery that transformed how she lived and practiced medicine.

Lifestyle Medicine: A Brief Review of Its Dramatic Impact on Health and Survival

By ignoring the root causes of disease and neglecting to prioritize lifestyle measures for prevention, the medical community is placing people at harm. Advanced nations, influenced by a Western lifestyle, are in the midst of a health crisis, resulting largely from poor lifestyle choices.

Lifestyle Medicine: A Brief Review of Its Dramatic Impact on Health and Survival

Lifestyle keeps cardiovascular disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes at bay, research finds.

Lifestyle medicine: a new medical specialty?

Lifestyle medicine’s adherents talk enthusiastically of fixing the broken medical model and saving the NHS. Does the launch of a new diploma and its introduction to the curriculum at medical schools such as Cambridge University signal its emergence as a standalone specialty—and what might its impact be?

Lifestyle Medicine: A Primary Care Perspective

While the specialty of preventive medicine is well known to physicians, lifestyle medicine is elusive for many. Lifestyle medicine is defined as “the systematic practice of assisting individuals and families to adopt and sustain behaviors that can improve health and quality of life.”

Teaching Doctors to Teach Patients About Lifestyle

Dr. Kelly says lifestyle medicine is essential in fighting the national epidemics of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. “We cannot solve the health problems of society unless we change our focus from acute, episodic care to health promotion and wellness — lifestyle medicine,” he said.

What Is Lifestyle Medicine?

The field of lifestyle medicine is rapidly making its way into mainstream conversations around chronic disease, diet, and sustainable patient care. But even as more doctors incorporate this holistic approach to medical care, many of us are left wondering, what the heck is lifestyle medicine, anyway?

Resources

The Plantrician Project

Educate, equip and empower our physicians, healthcare providers and other health influencers with knowledge about the indisputable benefits of whole food plant-based nutrition.

American Board of Lifestyle Medicine

The American Board of Lifestyle Medicine (ABLM) sets and maintains standards for assessment and credentialing of physicians in Lifestyle Medicine.

American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Discover evidence-based education, practice resources and networking that support the therapeutic use of lifestyle change as the foundation of health and healthcare.