Lifestyle Medicine Insider News and Updates – January 2024

Disclaimer: The information included in Insider is intended to give our readers a sense of what is happening in the news, research journals and other channels related to lifestyle medicine. Inclusion does not imply ACLM endorsement. Note that some links may require registration or subscription.

MEDICAL PRACTICE

• The American Independent Medical Practice Association (AIMPA) launched in October 2023 as a new voice for physicians practicing independently.
• Past-President Cate Collings, MD, FACC, DipABLM, writes on the value and reimbursement of lifestyle medicine shared medical appointments in this new Medscape column.

HEALTH EQUITY

• This article in Self discusses the various reasons Blacks in the U.S. have a higher risk of heart disease.
• The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has issued its 2023 report on healthcare quality and disparities to provide a comprehensive overview of the quality of healthcare received by the general U.S. population and disparities in care experienced by different racial and socioeconomic groups.
• ACLM partner The Root Cause Coalition has released a year-long study assessing social drivers of health. Housing and food security were of the greatest concern among study participants, while the most experienced issues in the past year were chronic health conditions and difficulty affording rent or mortgage.

PEDIATRICS

• This study published in Pediatric Research explored the relationship between sociodemographic factors and adherence to the MIND (Mediterranean-DASH [Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension] Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) diet in a demographically diverse, national U.S. population-based sample of 9- to 12-year-olds.

RESEARCH NEWS

• ACLM’s study “Lifestyle Medicine Practitioners Implementing a Greater Proportion of Lifestyle Medicine Experience Less Burnout” was selected as one of the “Papers of the Year” by the American Journal of Health Promotion (AJHP). Authors included: Kathryn J. Pollard, MS; Joel Gittelsohn, PhD; Padmaja Patel, MD, FACLM, DipABLM; Liana Lianov, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACLM, DipABLM; Kelly Freeman, MSN, RN, AGPCNP-BC, DipACLM; Kara L. Staffier, MPH; Kaitlyn R. Pauly MS, RDN, DipACLM; and Micaela C. Karlsen, PhD, MSPH.

MILITARY HEALTH

• A new study of over 700,000 veterans published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that a combination of eight lifestyle factors is associated with a significantly lower risk of premature mortality and an estimated prolonged life expectancy.

NURSING

• An article written by ACLM member Cody Stubbe, MSN, RN, on nursing’s role in lifestyle medicine was the cover feature of the December American Nurse.
• The benefit of eating a whole food, plant-based diet was the topic of this Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation blog post.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

• The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is seeking proposals to encourage investment in preventive care — especially in areas of the country where health outcomes are worse than the national average.

“SEAT AT THE TABLE”

• ACLM Board Member and Chair of ACLM’s Global Sustainability Committee Neha Pathak, MD, FACP, DipABLM, has been selected to serve on the Expert Committee for the National Academy of Medicine’s Communicating About Climate & Health Project.
• ACLM was invited by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to join its Primary Care Provider Advisory Board. ACLM current and past board members, Melissa Bernstein, PhD, RD, FAND, DipACLM, and Brenda Rea, MD, RD, PT, DrPh, FACLM, FAAFP, DipABLM, will be serving as ACLM’s representatives.

NEW YORK

• Patients are “knocking down the doors” to join NYC Health + Hospital’s Lifestyle Medicine Program, says ACLM member Michelle McMacken, MD, DipABLM, the system’s executive director of nutrition and lifestyle medicine who was quoted in this Becker’s Hospital Review Piloted first in 2019 at its Bellevue hospital, the program is such a success that the initiative is expanding to six other sites throughout the city including NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, the first time the program will be available in Queens.
• The City of New York Office of Food Policy has distributed two new reports. The first, the Food Standards Compliance Report,  shows the nutritional quality of the 219 million meals served by City agencies in FY23. The second report, NYC Food by the Numbers, is a visual compilation of the latest data on food programs, public feeding services, diet-related diseases, the nexus between food and climate, and food retail.

PILLARS

SLEEP

• New research published in Sleep found that sleep regularity is more important than sleep duration.
• The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health recently published a study revealing that while a single dose of caffeine can improve attention in sleep-deprived individuals, regular high consumption of caffeine leads to diminished attentional performance, as well as alterations in brain activity.

CHRONIC DISEASE

TYPE 2 DIABETES

• Type 2 diabetes may have profound effects on mental health, especially if diagnosed earlier in life, according to this study published in PLOS Medicine.
• Kaiser Family Foundation Health News writes that some diagnosed with type 2 diabetes may actually have latent autoimmune diabetes of adults or LADA. Patients with it can be misdiagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and spend months or years trying to manage the wrong condition.

OBESITY

• Everyday Health has published a special section on obesity that includes interviews with a number of ACLM members.
• Late last month the FDA was evaluating whether to take regulatory action over reports that Mounjaro, Ozempic and other weight-loss and type 2 diabetes drugs have caused alopecia, aspiration and suicidal ideation, the agency revealed in its Adverse Event Reporting System webpage. “Preliminary evaluation has not found evidence that use of these medicines causes suicidal thoughts or actions,” the FDA now says in a statement.
• Adding one cup of navy beans to the usual diet of individuals with obesity and a history of colorectal cancer improved gut microbiome diversity and regulated metabolites and markers related to disease, according to research published in eBioMedicine.

INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE

• In a poster presentation at the recent Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases annual meeting reported on by MedPage Today, researchers said their study showed red meat consumption was tied to a higher chance of ulcerative colitis flare, but a similar association was not seen for other high-fat foods.

PARTNERS IN THE NEWS

• Corewell Health’s lifestyle medicine program and ACLM member Carolyn Vollmer, MD, DipABLM, are featured in this WZZM13 Grand Rapids segment on a patient’s testimonial that the program changed her life.

MEMBERS IN THE NEWS

• Cone Health and local North Carolina media featured the story of Gebreselassie (Gebre) Nida, MD, FACE, DipABLM, who was recently included in Marquis Who’s Who.
• Ajay Joseph, MD, FACC, DipABLM, and the St. Francis Health System’s Lifestyle Medicine Program in Tulsa, Okla., were featured by the system.
• Kayli Anderson, MS, RDN, DipACLM, ACSM-EP, was interviewed for this New York Times article on healthy snacks for traveling.
• Alka Gupta, MD, DipABLM, was interviewed by Medscape for a video segment on the importance of lifestyle medicine in primary care.
• Linda Shiue, MD, DipABLM, was among nine health experts interviewed by NBC News and picked up by the New York Post on the holiday food and drinks they avoid.
• Janel Gordon, MD, DipOBOM, DipABLM, urged individuals to explore the world of plant-based living in this WISH-TV Indianapolis segment on “Veganuary,” an annual challenge for people to abstain from meat, dairy, and ultra-processed foods.
• ABC4 Utah interviewed Jake Veigel, MD, a sports medicine physician at Intermountain Health’s Lifestyle Medicine and Wellness Center, about measuring New Year resolution success beyond just weight.
• Noemi Adame, MD, discusses five things that inhibit weight loss on the mindbodygreen blog.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

• This viewpoint article in JAMA Network claims the medical and public health communities’ enthusiasm for food is medicine “seems unjustified by its likely benefit.”
• Nearly half of every dollar spent by Medicare drug plans goes to private health insurers’ pharmacy benefits managers and wholesalers, according to this Health Care un-covered post.
• This study published in BMC that evaluated the nutritional risk profile of food and beverage companies showed that the world’s largest businesses in the sector are heavily dependent on revenue that is derived from the sales of unhealthy products.