Life-style drugs for all: Wholesome meals comes first – . Well being Weblog

"Lifestyle medicine is only for rich people, isn't it?" A few years ago a colleague asked me if I was involved in this relatively new area of ​​medicine that leads people to healthy habits. This was certainly a common misperception.

In the US, a revitalized brand of health activism is aiming to bring lifestyle medicine to a wider range of people. This is supported by new efforts by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine to engage the communities hardest hit by chronic diseases.

The first pillar of a healthy lifestyle: food is medicine

Lifestyle medicine is an evidence-based practice that helps people adopt and maintain healthy behaviors, such as: For example, improving diet, increasing activity, coping with stress, sleeping well, reducing alcohol consumption and quitting tobacco. Large studies show that such habits can extend our lives by well over a decade. What's more, these habits can even keep those extra years free from diseases like diabetes, heart disease, strokes, and cancer.

A plant-based diet – that is, a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, beans and legumes, nuts and seeds, and whole grains – can reduce inflammation as well as the risk of many chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Put simply, food is medicine. Some doctors make this information available to patients as part of their regular medical care.

But many people do not have easy access to healthy plant foods. Now especially, they may suffer from significant financial constraints, unemployment and unstable housing. Or they live in a "food wasteland" where food options are severely limited, or worse, in a "food swamp," an area where fast food and junk food are more available than anything. Living in a food swamp puts people at greater risk of becoming overweight or obese.

Ways to change the equation

It is crucial to make it easy for patients to access healthy plant-based foods. Some doctors and academic medical centers are taking steps to provide underserved communities with healthy food.

Pantries. Dr. Jacob Mirsky is a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-director of the Medical Department's Healthy Lifestyle Program. He works in an underserved community north of Boston, where he runs his clinic's new vegetable pantry. If he prescribes a plant-based diet for his patients, he can also take care of the plants. He views this work as activism and an effective way to eradicate inequalities while caring for his patients.

Herbal food pantries and food prescribing programs have been positively received by communities. One such program in a low-income rural area in Texas delivered 30 pounds of fresh produce every two weeks to households classified as food unsafe – meaning they did not have enough to eat for six months. Participants rated the program as critical to feeding their families, and 99% said they consumed all or almost all of the food they were given.

Education and support. Dr. Michelle McMacken is an assistant professor of medicine at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine and director of the herbal lifestyle medicine program at NYC Health and Bellevue Hospital. It works to provide lifestyle medicine services to as many patients as possible regardless of their socio-economic status.

"I believe everyone deserves access to lifestyle medicine, especially the highest risk and most at risk patients who may benefit most from it," she says. “The majority of my patients – including those facing significant socio-economic challenges – want to learn what they can do to become healthier. We work together to find out how they can use lifestyle medicine in their own situation. "

Despite difficult circumstances, she has seen patients achieve health changes, including weight loss and improved cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

Programs to educate people about the power of plant foods can have a big impact. A study of 32 Latinx patients with type 2 diabetes who live in a medically underserved area of ​​California offered a five-week program that introduced participants to the power of plant foods. The drop in blood sugar continued for six months after this program ended.

Connecting people and food. The Family Van is a long-running mobile health program endorsed by . Medical School that offers free training, resources and some clinical services to everyone regardless of insurance status. A big part of their job is helping people access nutritional support through SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and finding inexpensive product sources like The Fresh Truck and The Daily Table. They will also provide grocery gift cards along with their advice on healthy eating. The Family Van has been collecting data such as body mass index, blood pressure, blood sugar, and ore for over a decade and has published several articles showing that such interventions work.

Programs like these are important and wonderful, but there is still much to be done. We hope that in our Healthy Lifestyle Program at Massachusetts General Hospital we can establish healthy lifestyle practice as the standard for the prevention and treatment of chronic disease for all of our patients. To this end, we develop practical, accurate methods to assess clinically important diet and lifestyle factors during the physical examination of each patient. At the same time, we are exploring evidence-based approaches to help people eat and live healthier, including our plant-based pantry, health coaching, and web-based group education courses. We hope that in the future each of our patients will have access to the quality information, resources, and support they need to lead healthy lives.