Announcing the first performance standard to measure the effectiveness of lifestyle-related disease treatments

An expert panel has published the first performance indicators to identify remission and assess the effectiveness of lifestyle medicine treatments. This allows for more objective comparisons of lifestyle behavioral interventions and other non-lifestyle treatments.

As interest in the field of lifestyle medicine grows, the lack of standards for documenting remission and long-term outcomes after lifestyle medicine treatments is recognized as a barrier to the widespread integration of this practice into health. This performance metric is important because it has become clear. “The American Academy of Lifestyle Medicine is a leader in the field of medicine,” said John Kelly, MD, MPH, DipABLM, FACLM, founding president of the American Academy of Lifestyle Medicine. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.

Lifestyle medicine is a medical specialty that uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary therapy to treat chronic diseases including, but not limited to, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, etc. . Lifestyle Medicine certified clinicians are trained to apply and treat evidence-based, holistic, prescriptive lifestyle changes that, when used intensively, often treat conditions such as turn around.

Applying the six pillars of lifestyle medicine (whole foods, plant-based eating patterns, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, positive social connections, and avoidance of hazardous substances) can also improve the effectiveness of these symptoms. This will lead to prevention.

“Many clinical practice guidelines emphasize the importance of addressing lifestyle behaviors in the treatment of chronic diseases, but without measurable performance standards, it is difficult to assess patient progress and long-term outcomes after lifestyle medicine interventions. We were unable to effectively assess outcomes,” Dr. Kelly said. .

“These new performance indicators, defined by a panel of experts, will equip clinicians with the standards they need to measure treatment success and help them adopt evidence-based lifestyle medicine.”

The expert panel proposes focusing on 10 diseases, conditions, or risk factors and using results collected after three months of treatment with lifestyle medicine. Conditions include cardiac function, cardiac risk factors, cardiac medications and treatments, patient-centered heart health, hypertension, type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, metabolic syndrome, inflammatory conditions, patient-centered measures for inflammatory conditions, chronic Includes kidney disease. Patient-centered measures are indicators related to quality of life, such as quality of life and pain ratings.

Specific measurements were selected for each disease to demonstrate whether lifestyle medicine could be considered effective. For example, to measure the effectiveness of lifestyle medicine treatments for hypertension, the committee examined systolic blood pressure and Diastolic blood pressure was determined. The committee also considered important the use of drugs and treatments known to be effective against hypertension. Ultimately, a consensus was reached on 32 performance measures.

Dr. Michaela Carlsen, senior director of research at the American Academy of Lifestyle Medicine and final author of the paper, said the process of developing performance measures revealed the need for a set of criteria to demonstrate the effectiveness of lifestyle medicine. He said it had become. paper.

“You wouldn't expect a surgery, procedure, or medication to be prescribed if there's no evidence that it works,” Dr. Carlsen said. “Our hope is that these standards will be widely adopted by healthcare professionals.”

As the field of lifestyle medicine continues to grow, measurement will play an important role. Future research should use these measurements for data collection in electronic medical record (EMR) systems to standardize evaluations of the effectiveness and performance of lifestyle disease treatments, the committee recommended.