Lifestyle medicine is the application of environmental, behavioural, medical and motivational principles to the management of lifestyle-related health problems in a clinical setting[1]. It is an established branch of medicine where we discuss lifestyle’s contribution to health in addition to non-pharmacological intervention in the treatment and management of lifestyle diseases such as exercise in diabetes mellitus and weight management in obesity[2].

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 and ‘strategies’ of a healthy diet and exercise to assist in the long term management of their pathology. In some cases Lifestyle Medicine ‘strategies’ and interventions are more effective 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.

In ther United State, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) provides leadership and assistance, facilitating lifestyle medicine clinicians’ pursuits of continuing medical education, practice knowledge, leadership skills, and research information needed to provide quality patient care and best counsel patients with respect to lifestyle-related diseases as a Firstline Therapy in restoring, preventing or eliminating the expression of dis-ease.

Comments: My goal here is to plant the seed. Many people have not heard of LifeStyle Medicine or it applications and, Strategies . My hope here is to start you off with a definition so when making decisions, better decisions are made on what avenue to choose regarding what to do about ‘your’ health. In order to have any understanding we start with the basics and- definitions to have clarity.

Join me, work with me, refer your family and friends to this website to subscribe to my blog.

Ask Dr Pat

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_medicine. http://www.metagenics.com/patients/chronic-illness-solutions/firstline-therapy