Melbourne Lifestyle Medicine

02/12/2024

This is the lowest price ever for this excellent course. We highly recommend it to anyone with a passionate interest in plant-based nutrition. While the course won't make you a nutritionist, it will give you a general understanding of the basic principles of whole food plant-based nutrition. The certificate is a valuable addition to a health professional's profile.
It will be Cyber Monday in the USA until Tuesday afternoon in Australia, so there's still time to sign up.
Regular price US$949 (which is now much lower than it used to be), and with 25% off it is only US$711.75.

Don't miss our BIGGEST sale of the year! Get 25% off our one-of-a-kind Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate now thru Monday, December 2nd!

https://nutritionstudies.org/courses/plant-based-nutrition/

15/07/2024

We are proud that Melbourne Lifestyle Medicine has been nominated for a Changemaker Award. Our organisation's highlight program is the 7-day Immersion retreat, which continues to evolve after running 19 events over the last 7 years. We have a great support team and a program that seems to be effective in bringing about lasting transformational health changes for our participants. The work satisfaction of seeing participants make lasting and transformative lifestyle changes is priceless.

20/06/2024

We will discuss Dr Dean Ornish's latest research —a randomised controlled trial investigating the effects of lifestyle change on those already diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease—and the media coverage of this research.

15/06/2024

It’s been a week since this ground-breaking dementia and lifestyle medicine study was published, and we have not seen it reported in any Australian mainstream or medical media. If it had been a drug study with similar positive results, it would have been all over the media. We can only speculate on why this study has been ignored – was it the plant-based diet or the paradigm-breaking idea that lifestyle could be more effective than pharmaceuticals?

Here is what we posted about the study on our nutrition page last weekend:

Intensive lifestyle changes can improve cognition and slow the progression of early Alzheimer's disease, finds this landmark study directed by Dr Dean Ornish. This is the first randomised, controlled clinical trial to investigate the effects of lifestyle change on those already diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Participants and their spouses/carers were provided with whole foods, plant-based meals and snacks, dietary supplements, and an in-person and online intensive program of exercise, stress management and group support. Compared to the control group, the study found a statistically significant improvement in 3 out of 4 measures of cognitive function and a borderline significant improvement in the fourth. Finding a statistically significant improvement in a small study (49 subjects) over a relatively short period of time (20 weeks) suggests that the lifestyle intervention had a powerful effect. There were also changes in biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease and metabolic health: LDL cholesterol was reduced by 31%. A dose effect was observed – higher adherence to the lifestyle intervention was associated with greater improvement in cognition and biomarkers.

Lifestyle intervention studies can raise more questions. Why did some subjects in the intervention group not do well? Was it related to adherence or other factors related to the disease? What was the relative importance of healthy plant-based nutrition versus supplements, exercise, meditation, and group support?
We call on research institutions to fund larger studies to validate the findings of this research and answer some of the questions it raises. However, given the established evidence linking lifestyle factors with the development of Alzheimer's disease and the therapeutic benefits of lifestyle found in this study, we shouldn’t have to wait for further research to recommend nutrition and lifestyle interventions as standard treatment for all patients with a diagnosis of early Alzheimer's disease.
Link to paper - https://alzres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13195-024-01482-z

Link to Dr Michael Greger’s summary of the new study - Can Alzheimer's Disease Be Reversed with a Plant Based Diet? https://nutritionfacts.org/video/can-alzheimers-disease-be-reversed-with-a-plant-based-diet/

If you are looking to make significant lifestyle changes to prevent or treat early-stage Alzheimer's disease, please join us at our next seven-day immersion retreat in the Yarra Valley, Victoria. Dates: 8th to 15th September. Details - https://www.wholefoodsplantbasedhealth.com.au/immersion/

08/06/2024

This is huge!

"Effects of intensive lifestyle changes on the progression of mild cognitive impairment or early dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease: a randomized, controlled clinical trial" - https://alzres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13195-024-01482-z

Just published yesterday, Dr Dean Ornish has demonstrated the power of a healthy lifestyle, including a plant-based diet, for significantly improving cognition and function in patients with early onset Alzheimer's disease.

Ornish is famous for being the first to demonstrate the power of a plant-based diet for reversing our biggest killer, CVD. He has also led studies that show that a plant-based diet may reverse prostate cancer, and extend telomeres.

You can find a good review of this new study here: https://www.investorsobserver.com/news/qm-pr/6601145759488153

And here: Can Alzheimer's Disease Be Reversed with a Plant Based Diet? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VrfbBN3Um8&t=20s

Background Evidence links lifestyle factors with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We report the first randomized, controlled clinical trial to determine if intensive lifestyle changes may beneficially affect the progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or early dementia due to AD. Methods A 1:1 mul...

30/04/2024

Dr. Ted Barnett is one of many MDs running lifestyle medicine programs in the USA. He founded the Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute which provides educational programs to patients and doctors. In this podcast, Dr. Barnett discusses his journey from interventional radiologist to lifestyle medicine educator, and their 15-day whole-food plant-based Jump Start program. We note that Rochester Lifestyle Medicine also facilitates The Lift Project, a program created by Australian lifestyle medicine leader, Dr. Darren Morton.
To learn more, listen to this 40 min NHA Health Science Podcast: https://www.healthscience.org/podcast/077-ted-barnett/

28/04/2024

Congratulations to our Melbourne Lifestyle Medicine program partner Dr Peter Johnston for featuring on Rip Esselstyn's Plant Strong podcast. Peter is as passionate about the environment as he is about healthy plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine. His message presents a grim picture of the current and projected state of Earth's environment. The good news is that we can all do something to mitigate global warming, deforestation and species extinction - simply by choosing to eat plant-based foods over animal products.

Dr. Peter Johnston advocates for plant-based diets and environmental activism, emphasizing the link between food systems, climate, and health. He urges listeners to choose plant-based options for a sustainable future.

11/03/2024

On the first morning of our Immersion Retreat we like to get out in nature, meet the kangaroos and show our participants around this beautiful property.

Check out my activity on Strava.

04/03/2024

We are planning to do regular live streams from our nutrition page Plant Based Health Australia. We've had problems going live after scheduling an event so we thought we would test it over on this page first.

23/01/2024

Join Malcolm and Jenny at the 2024 Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine conference, 25-27th July, in Adelaide. We've taken advantage of the early bird prices which apply until 31st January.

This year’s conference will be an interesting experience. The annual conference of three health organisations rolled into one event. The program and list of speakers have yet to be announced, so we can’t give you much information at this stage.

Malcolm gave a brief presentation two years ago on planning and implementing our 7-day Lifestyle Medicine Immersion events and the amazing results that we see in participants. This picture of us was taken at the 2022 ASLM conference.
See https://lifestylemedicine.org.au/conference/

We are taking registrations for our March immersion retreat - from 10th - 17th March in the Yarra Valley, Victoria. Details via our other website - https://www.wholefoodsplantbasedhealth.com.au/immersion/

12/01/2024

Malcolm is honoured to be interviewed by Dr Frank Sabatino for the National Health Association Health Science Podcast. The National Health Association is one of the longest-running organisations recommending SOS-free (salt/oil/sugar-free) whole food plant-based nutrition.
In the interview, Malcolm discusses our 7-day lifestyle medicine immersion and the amazing results we see when people are provided with a 100% SOS-free, whole food plant-based diet and engage in other healthy lifestyle behaviours. Malcolm also talks about the practice of lifestyle medicine in Australia and Australia's current nutrition climate. Food composition - what nutrients are actually in your food - is one of our pet topics and one that nutrition experts often misunderstand. Malcolm touched on this topic in the interview, which was recorded in November last year, and we have since written a FAQ on 'good fats' to elaborate on one aspect of food composition raised in the podcast.

You can listen to the 42-minute podcast at https://www.healthscience.org/podcast/062-malcolm-mackay/

We still have places available at our March immersion. If you are interested, check out - https://www.wholefoodsplantbasedhealth.com.au/immersion/

You'll find our 'good fats' FAQ here - https://www.wholefoodsplantbasedhealth.com.au/resources/faq/