“AJLM continues to publish articles in diverse areas of lifestyle medicine.”
The year 2023 marks the 17th anniversary for the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine (AJLM). The past year has been marked by significant progress both for AJLM and the field of lifestyle medicine. While enormous challenges remain, the field of lifestyle medicine is making substantial progress and now impacts in major ways on a variety of initiatives both nationally and internationally.
Over the past year, AJLM has continued to grow and expand its presence around the world. AJLM currently has over 15 600 subscribers and in the year 2022 we had over 180 000 full text downloads from individuals and institutions. There is no question that lifestyle medicine is addressing significant needs around the world and the future is very bright. Having said that, we still face enormous challenges, so it remains critically important to continue with the high level of commitment and passion that members of the lifestyle medicine community continue to display.
While many important national endeavors and initiatives have occurred over the past year perhaps none is more important than the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. The tag line for this conference was “Ending Hunger, Improving Nutrition and Physical Activity, and Reducing Diet-Related Diseases and Disparities.”
ACLM was well represented at this historic conference by the previous ACLM President, Dr. Cate Collings. Numerous follow-up activities are planned under the leadership of ACLM Executive Director, Susan Benigas and the Board of Directors. Of the many initiatives that ACLM is planning, perhaps the most significant, is the commitment of 100 000 complimentary registrations for the 5.5 CME accredited Lifestyle Medicine and Food as Medicine Essentials online courses. In addition, the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine (ABLM) pledged a 2.1-million-dollar matching grant to cover 50% of the cost of education and certification for one primary care provider (PCP) at each of the nation’s 1400 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs).
For those who are not familiar with the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health information can be found in numerous ACLM presentations or at; https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/white-house-conference-hunger-nutrition-and-health.
From a personal perspective, I believe there are some unique and exceptional opportunities related to the leadership for the White House Conference. Specifically, the leadership for this initiative is in the hands of Congressman Jim McGovern. Of note, Congressman McGovern’s district in Massachusetts (District 2) also includes the UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts where I serve on the faculty. I am already in discussions with senior leaders at the Medical School to discuss how we can partner with Congressman McGovern to broaden and deepen the impact of the conference. I believe that there will be substantial opportunities for ACLM in this area.
One initial concept that we have been discussing at the Medical School involves working with Congressman McGovern to make his District the “Shining Light on the Hill” as a flagship congressional district that has fully embraced the concepts articulated in the White House conference. I will keep you posted!
The cornerstone of my personal involvement for many years in lifestyle medicine has been to make sure that the academic foundation of the field is unassailable. ACLM has fully embraced this concept with numerous initiatives including lifestyle medicine certification and numerous publications. AJLM has also continued to aggressively pursue continuing to build the academic basis of lifestyle medicine. The success of this effort is witnessed, not only by the enormous number of full text downloads of articles in the past year from AJLM (as already indicated 180 000), but also a strong 22% increase in submissions of academic articles to AJLM from around the world.
In addition, AJLM was pleased to publish the abstracts from the ACLM national conference to be presented at the ACLM national conference 2022. Having reviewed these abstracts, I was struck by their diversity and quality of which have increased each year.
AJLM continues to publish articles in diverse areas of lifestyle medicine. Two areas that we focused on this year deserve special attention. First, we published a number of articles in the area of lifestyle medicine and COVID-19. One particularly striking article was the publication of an article by Hasson, Sallis, Coleman et al. on the multiple benefits of physical activity in helping to ameliorate serious consequences from COVID-19. 1 Dr. Sallis has been a leading proponent of physical activity on many fronts, and we can now add COVID-19 to his impressive body of work.
We also published several important articles on health equity. This has become an increasingly prominent and important topic throughout academic medicine, and I am pleased that ACLM and AJLM have staked out a position in this area.
Other academic initiatives are also in progress at my organization. For example, we continue to edit and expand the Lifestyle Medicine Series. This is a Series of single topic books designed to provide an introduction to lifestyle medicine and/or address the concerns of people who have a specific area of interest within the field of lifestyle medicine. Over the past 2 years, we have published seven books in this area in the Lifestyle Medicine Series including single topic books on physical activity, obesity, women’s health, cardiovascular health and disease, nursing and a Manual of Lifestyle Medicine. In the next 6 months, we will be publishing additional volumes in the area of behavioral counseling, psychiatry and mental health, diabetes and other metabolic conditions. Future volumes are anticipated in geriatrics, primary care, health equity, and brain health.
I am also pleased to announce that the 4th edition of my comprehensive Lifestyle Medicine textbook is now completed in manuscript form and has been submitted to the publisher. 2 Numerous members of ACLM have played significant roles in this endeavor. We have expanded the purview of topics covered to not only continue with core concepts of physical activity, nutrition, weight management and addiction treatment to now include substantial sections on preventive neurology, psychiatry, and nursing. Two areas that deserve particular importance are the emerging area of lifestyle medicine and brain health as well as the addition of sleep as a core concept not only in lifestyle medicine but in healthcare in general.
It is clear that many of the same considerations for cardiovascular disease are also applicable to the prevention of neurologic problems and are key concepts underpinning brain health. This synergy was highlighted several years ago by a Presidential Advisory from the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association entitled “Optimizing Brain Health.” 3
Several chapters in the 4th edition of my Lifestyle Medicine textbook provide detail about how lifestyle medicine practices can play a significant role in not only treating neurologic conditions but also in reducing their risk factors. Practitioners of lifestyle medicine know that healthy sleep is one of the pillars of lifestyle medicine. As a cardiologist, I can report that sleep has traditionally been underestimated in the field of cardiovascular medicine. We know that 40% of people in the United States have one form or another of sleep dysfunction and this problem increases the risk of heart disease by 30–40%. I was pleased that the AHA has modified its initial “Life’s Simple 7” risk reduction guidelines to “Life’s Essential 8” by adding sleep as the 8th pillar of heart disease risk reduction.
I would remiss if I did not emphasize the enormous value that we at AJLM place on our partnership with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. ACLM has continued to experience phenomenal growth and at the time of this writing, has over 9000 members! This makes ACLM the fastest growing discipline in medicine. Under the capable leadership of Susan Benigas and the ACLM Board of Directors, the future is bright. I anticipate continued exuberant growth at ACLM as well as multiple important initiatives and publications in the area of lifestyle medicine.
The field of lifestyle medicine continues to exhibit phenomenal worldwide growth. For example, the FuWai Hospital in Beijing has established a “Healthy Lifestyle Medicine Center.” They anticipate having an annual Lifestyle Medicine Conference. The first Lifestyle Medicine Conference the FuWai Hospital held in 2020 had over 600 000 participants around the world. I was honored to be invited to give the “Special Lecture” for the Second China Healthy Lifestyle Medicine conference. As a component of the relationship between FuWai Hospital and my organization, they have purchased the Chinese translation rights to the 3rd edition of my Lifestyle Medicine textbook as well as my recently released shorter Manual of Lifestyle Medicine. This assures that the same evidence base that provides the foundation for lifestyle medicine in the United States and elsewhere around the world also provides the groundwork for the lifestyle medicine movement in China.
In summary, the year 2022 was one of substantial growth and progress in lifestyle medicine. There is no question the future is bright and that we will continue to see lifestyle medicine assume an increasingly prominent role in many aspects of health and healthcare around the world. For example, this understanding was the cornerstone for why the World Health Organization announced its initiative to combat non-communicable disease which, according to the WHO, represents over 70% of all diseases worldwide. Lifestyle medicine plays a significant role in many of the programs around the world that are being supported by the WHO initiative.
I remain in awe of the hard work and passion that so many members of the lifestyle medicine community continue to exhibit. While we celebrate the achievements of the past year, we must remain committed to the hard work still required in many lifestyle medicine areas. The future is indeed bright.
James M. Rippe, MD Editor, AJLM
Professor of Medicine
UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, MA
References
- 1.Hasson R, Sallis JF, Coleman N, Kaushal N, Nocera VG, Keith N. COVID-19: Implications for physical activity, health disparities, and health equity. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2022;16(4):420-433. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Rippe JM. Lifestyle medicine. 4th ed. Boca Raton: CRC Press, In press. [Google Scholar]
- 3.Gorelick PB, Furie KL, Iadecola C, et al. Defining optimal brain health in adults: A presidential advisory from the American heart association/American stroke association. Stroke. 2017;48(10):e284-e303. Epub 2017/09/09. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]