Lifestyle medicine

Lifestyle medicine is defined as the application of environmental, behavioural, medical and motivational principles to the management of lifestyle related health problems in a clinical setting [Egger, G. Binns, A. Rossner, S. (2008). Lifestyle Medicine. McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd.] . It involves the therapeutic use of lifestyle interventions in the management of disease, at all levels and is intended to help manage the growing number of cases presenting to doctors now with a lifestyle-based cause of disease such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Such interventions include nutrition, physical activity, stress management, sleep management, smoking cessation, personal hygiene and a variety of other non-drug modalities. Lifestyle intervention is an essential component in the treatment of chronic disease that can be as effective as medication, but while minimising the risks and unwanted side-effects.

The practice of lifestyle medicine covers primary prevention (preventing a disease from developing), secondary prevention (modifying risk factors to avert the disease) and tertiary prevention (rehabilitation from a disease state and prevention of recurrence). Although the practice of lifestyle medicine incorporates many public health approaches, it remains primarily a clinical discipline which involves general practitioners working together with a team of allied heath professionals to develop a patient specific intervention.

Lifestyle medicine is often prescribed in conjunction with a typical medicine approach of pharmacotherapy. For example diabetic patients who may be on medication to help control the blood glucose levels in the short term might also be prescribed a lifestyle intervention of a healthy diet and exercise to assist in the long term management of their pathology. In some cases lifestyle interventions are more effective when augmented with appropriate pharmacotherapy, as with tobacco use where medications such as buproprion may be prescribed to assist the patient to quit smoking and adopt a healthy lifestyle change.

Essentially lifestyle medicine requires the patient to change their high risk health behaviours to adopt a lifestyle that includes health behaviours that will help to reverse the pathology and or reduce the likelihood of disease progression.

The [http://www.australianlifestylemedicineassociation.net.au/ Australian Lifestyle Medicine Association] (ALMA) has been set up by representatives of professions involved in the field under the auspices of Southern Cross University. It is intended to represent the 14 disciplines eligible for medical benefits under the Enhanced Primary Care (EPC) system. The main aims of the association are :

1. To provide education in the practice of lifestyle medicine to health professionals
2. To increase awareness of lifestyle-based causes of disease in the general public
3. To assist in the integration of health professionals working in lifestyle-related disease

References

External links

* [http://www.australianlifestylemedicineassociation.net.au/ Australian Lifestyle Medicine Association]
* [http://www.lifestylemedicine.org American College of Lifestyle Medicine]
* [http://www.scu.edu.au Southern Cross University, Australia]
* [http://www.rippehealth.com/lifestylemedicineassociation/index.html Lifestyle Medicine Association]
* [http://www.lifestylemedicine.net.au/ Lifestyle Medicine in Australia]