FOR WINTER 2023
The New Practice of Lifestyle Medicine Lifestyle Medicine is the new approach to lower the risk of disease and illness by utilizing lifestyle interventions such as physical activity, nutrition, stress management, sleep hygiene and other health habits. Lifestyle Medicine is now being promoted in clinical practices and other professional health care organizations. Chronic disease is now responsible for 70 to 80% of all health care expenditures, yet most health professionals treat chronic disease the same way they treat communicable disease: with pills and injections. While this might temporarily relieve acute symptoms, it does not address the underlying cause ….the lifestyle choices we make on a daily basis. There is now systematic and comprehensive efforts to incorporate lifestyle medicine into standard practice. This gives patients the tools to take control and self manage their health, which is long overdue. Dr. Anne Newman, Director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Aging and Population Health, reports on a recent study stating ‘the bottom line is that those with the healthiest habits could expect to live out roughly 80 percent of their remaining years disability free. In contrast, among those with the lowest level of health habits, only 55-60 percent of their remaining years were disability free’ she added. For the study, Newman’s team sifted through data on almost 5900 men and women aged 65 and older. These findings suggest that, even later in life, having or adopting healthy lifestyle factors can potentially extend the period of future life lived with good health and free of disability.
SOURCES: Anne Newman, M.D., M.P.H., chair, department of epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, and director, Center for Aging and Population Health, University of Pittsburgh; Gregg Fonarow, M.D., professor, cardiology, and co-director, Preventative Cardiology Program, University of California, Los Angeles; October 2016, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society