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. 2018:22:17-025.
doi: 10.7812/TPP/17-025.

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

Balazs I Bodai  1 , Therese E Nakata  2 , William T Wong  3 , Dawn R Clark  4 , Steven Lawenda  5 , Christine Tsou  6 , Raymond Liu  7 , Linda Shiue  8 , Neil Cooper  9 , Michael Rehbein  10 , Benjamin P Ha  11 , Anne Mckeirnan  12 , Rajiv Misquitta  13 , Pankaj Vij  14 , Andrew Klonecke  15 , Carmelo S Mejia  16 , Emil Dionysian  17 , Sean Hashmi  18 , Michael Greger  19 , Scott Stoll  20 , Thomas M Campbell  21
Affiliations

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

Balazs I Bodai et al. Perm J. 2018.

Abstract

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. Epidemiologic, ecologic, and interventional studies have repeatedly indicated that most chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes, are the result of lifestyles fueled by poor nutrition and physical inactivity.In this article, we describe the practice of lifestyle medicine and its powerful effect on these modern instigators of premature disability and death. We address the economic benefits of prevention-based lifestyle medicine and its effect on our health care system: A system on the verge of bankruptcy. We recommend vital changes to a disastrous course. Many deaths and many causes of pain, suffering, and disability could be circumvented if the medical community could effectively implement and share the power of healthy lifestyle choices. We believe that lifestyle medicine should become the primary approach to the management of chronic conditions and, more importantly, their prevention. For future generations, for our own health, and for the Hippocratic Oath we swore to uphold ("First do no harm"), the medical community must take action. It is our hope that the information presented will inspire our colleagues to pursue lifestyle medicine research and incorporate such practices into their daily care of patients. The time to make this change is now.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure Statement

The author(s) have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Leading causes of death in the US, 1900 and 2010.a a Source: Centers for Disease Control and Infection data from Jones et al.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Quadrants of total health.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Steps in the pathogenesis of inflammation leading to progression of chronic diseases.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Effects of cellular damage, chronic conditions, and lifestyle practices appear to raise the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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