Leveraging Patients' Interest in Lifestyle Medicine: A Growth Opportunity for Providers and the Health Care System

Abstract

Background: Lifestyle medicine, including whole-food, plant-based eating, is an evidence-based approach to reducing chronic disease risks. Despite its alignment with recommendations from major medical societies, lifestyle medicine is not emphasized in medical education. Health care providers' level of exposure to lifestyle medicine may facilitate or obstruct patients' ability to make healthy lifestyle changes and reduce their chronic disease risk. Materials and Methods: We analyzed transcripts of focus groups from participants (n = 17) in a pilot plant-based lifestyle medicine program. The program itself was situated in a large public health care system and had demonstrated efficacy in improving cardiometabolic outcomes. Our thematic analysis evaluated quotations citing interactions with providers not affiliated with the program. Results: We found participants cited discordant patient-provider perspectives around patient decisions to pursue lifestyle and, specifically, regarding the benefits of lifestyle in treating lifestyle-related chronic illness. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that patients could have missed an opportunity to incur the benefits of lifestyle medicine had they not pursued the program despite the perception of their providers' opposition. These hypothesis-generating findings suggest the need to build providers' awareness of and exposure to lifestyle medicine to facilitate patient engagement in evidence-based lifestyle behavior change programs.

Keywords: behavior change; chronic disease; lifestyle medicine; lifestyle modification; plant-based diet.