Lifestyle medicine

Lifestyle medicine is defined as the application of environmental, behavioural, medical and motivational principles to the management of lifestyle-related health problems in a clinical setting. 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. It should not be confused with lifestyle drugs.

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 of a healthy diet and exercise to assist in the long term management of their pathology. In some cases lifestyle interventions are more effective when augmented 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.

The Australian Lifestyle Medicine Association (ALMA) has been set up by representatives of professions involved in the field under the auspices of Southern Cross University. It is intended to represent the 14 disciplines eligible for medical benefits under the Enhanced Primary Care (EPC) system.

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.

The European College of Preventive and Lifestyle Medicine (ECLM) is a medical organization dedicated to the prevention and treatment of lifestyle-related chronic diseases and the promotion of healthy lives. The ECLM defines lifestyle medicine as: "Prevention and treatment of lifestyle-related diseases by nutritional, exercise, psychological, social and pharmaceutical interventions" (Sagner, Behbod 2012). The ECLM serves to raise awareness of Preventive and Lifestyle Medicine among practitioners and the general public; support research on the role of lifestyle factors in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases; and offer educational programs on evidence-based nutrition, exercise medicine, stress management, mind-body medicine, and general lifestyle medicine. The first department for Lifestyle Medicine in Germany was founded by Michael Sagner, MD at the university medical center in Hamburg.