Lifestyle Medicine is an age-old, yet a revived, modern scientific approach utilizing lifestyle interventions aiming to decrease health related risks which often lead to diseases and disfunctions. Integration of nutrition, physical activity, stress management and social support form the core of this way of healthcare.
Over four decades of work at the Preventative Medicine Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, and other centers around the world, has proven its value and relevance. We are at a loss when we delay adopting lifestyle medicine as a foundational approach to preventing and treating many chronic diseases. However, we face a major barrier. Today’s healthcare providers are ill-prepared to deal with their consumers in counselling them about the urgent need to change their lifestyle when indicated. Many caregivers are skeptical about their patients’ receptivity to this “old fashioned” approach. Also, at the present time, neither insurance companies nor governmental agencies have made provisions to pay for appropriate, in-depth counselling services.
In contrast to the above, what “western medicine” has been for the past many decades, is Lifelong Medicine. Most countries around the world are now called upon to deal with noncommunicable diseases, also called lifestyle diseases. Most common examples are cancer, diabetes, heart diseases, obesity, liver and kidney diseases, joint/musculoskeletal problems, Respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, high cholesterol and dental diseases. These are a major cause of dying. Besides, these chronic diseases cause many complications, suffering and ill-health over a prolonged period of time. Because of lifestyle changes that have occurred in the last two to three decades, people contract these chronic diseases early on in their lives. This is what necessitates the need for lifelong medicine and protracted health services. This ever-enlarging health problem and the drain over our resources must be solved now through smart, proven and cost-effective solutions. Under these circumstances, lifestyle medicine has emerged as the most effective and alternative approach.
A convergence of forces has made “Lifestyle Medicine” the most compelling trend in today’s healthcare. Present day realities are:
An increase in the aging population globally;
The economic imperative to control spending;
The political debate of how to achieve saving.
Lifestyle changes positively and definitely improve or reverse ravages from chronic diseases, either in combination with drugs and surgery, or as an alternative at a much lower cost and without side effects. Some very favorable or promising findings have come to light which are solely due to lifestyle changes. These are:
Reversal of the progression of severe coronary heart disease;
Strong possibilities of the reversal of Type 2 diabetes;
Slowing, stopping, or even the reversal of early-stage prostate cancer.
Fortunately also, when patients on lifelong drug regimens make changes to their lifestyles, they are able to reduce or even discontinue medication with professional help. The colossal cost of healthcare, both human and financial, are widely known and well documented. Recent studies question whether angioplasties and interventions using stents can prolong life or prevent heart attacks in most stable heart patients. A regimen of diet and lifestyle has been proven to be more effective than the present day treatments for prostate cancer and the management of diabetes. Annual costs to care for people with chronic diseases can also be considerably curtailed. Personal and other social benefits arising from an improved state of physical, mental and social well-being and relatively free from disease are what money cannot buy; this brings us closer to WHO’s definition of health.
Provisions of the Affordable Care Act in the USA will mandate making new models of payment to reward providers for better treatment outcomes. This will necessitate a reduction in avoidable tests and procedures and in unproven or doubtful approaches in healthcare. In turn, this will help establish nationally or internationally reputable standards of practice for all healthcare professionals. This will become a game changer. Changes in reimbursement will alter medical practice and even medical education. Policy makers will come to realize the need to emphasize preventive and public health measures and to allocate sufficient funds in that direction.
Lifestyle medicine, as previously stated, is not just about how long we live, but also how well. And, because the mechanisms of health are so dynamic, the positive effects of lifestyle changes are felt quickly and vividly. It redefines the reason for making these changes from the fear of dying to a joy of living.
India International Health Foundation 