17/05/2023
What does lifestyle medicine mean?
Lifestyle medicine is a branch of medicine dealing with research, prevention, treatment and reversal of diseases caused by lifestyle factors such as nutrition, physical inactivity, and chronic stress. (source: Wikipedia)
Lifestyle medicine is NOT the same as alternative medicine, functional medicine or complementary therapies. It is an evidence-based system like conventional western medicine. But rather than being disease-focused, it considers the whole person, in the context of their environment and lifestyle. Environment is both internal (your immune status, your gut bacteria or microbiome) and external (air pollutions, exposure to chemicals in various products).
Your lifestyle includes your living circumstances, occupation, habits, personality traits and more.
Our risk of injury, infection, illness are all determined by either our genes, our environment or lifestyle.
From this perspective, I find that lifestyle medicine is closest to traditional medicine or traditional family practice. By traditional, I mean the process of clinical diagnosis and management, before we were restricted by targets, social care burdens and the 15 minute appointment.
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