What is integrative lifestyle medicine?
Merging “Lifestyle Medicine” with “Integrative Medicine”, I formulate powerful solutions to health issues relevant to today’s fast-paced society.
Unlike the ‘band-aid’ approach taken by much of Western Medicine, this type of medicine goes far deeper than just treating symptoms, targeting the root cause(s) of the health issues.
THE CHANGING FACE OF MEDICINE.
Using synthetic drugs and surgery to treat health conditions was known just a few decades ago as, simply, “medicine.” Today, this system is increasingly being termed “Western” or “conventional medicine.” This is the kind of medicine most North Americans still encounter in hospitals and clinics. Often both expensive and invasive, it is also very good at some things; for instance, handling emergency conditions such as massive injury or a life-threatening stroke. If I were hit by a bus, I’d want to be taken immediately to a high-tech emergency room. Importantly, some conventional medicine is scientifically validated, some is not.
Any therapy that is typically excluded by conventional medicine, and that patients use instead of conventional medicine, is known as “alternative medicine.” It’s a catch-all term that includes hundreds of old and new practices ranging from acupuncture to homeopathy to iridology. Generally, alternative therapies are closer to nature, cheaper and less invasive than conventional therapies, although there are exceptions.
Some alternative therapies are scientifically validated, some are not. An alternative medicine practice that is used in conjunction with a conventional one is known as a “complementary” medicine. (Example: using ginger syrup to prevent nausea during chemotherapy.) Together, complementary and alternative medicines are often referred to by the acronym, CAM.
Enter integrative medicine.
INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE.
Defined by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) at the National Institutes of Health, integrative medicine “combines mainstream medical therapies and CAM therapies for which there is some high-quality scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness.”
In other words, integrative medicine “cherry picks” the very best, scientifically-validated therapies from both conventional and CAM systems.
This is essential to the approach I take with clients: I am not wedded to a particular dogma, Western or Eastern, but to a “improve-the-client’s-health” philosophy.
Principles of integrative medicine (adapted from Dr. Andrew Weil):
A partnership between patient and practitioner in the healing process
Appropriate use of conventional and alternative methods to facilitate the body’s innate healing response
Consideration of all factors that influence health, wellness and disease, including mind, spirit and community as well as body
A philosophy that neither rejects conventional medicine nor accepts alternative therapies uncritically
Recognition that good medicine should be based in good science, be inquiry driven, and be open to new paradigms
Use of natural, effective, less-invasive interventions whenever possible
Use of the broader concepts of promotion of health and the prevention of illness as well as the treatment of disease
Training of practitioners to be models of health and healing, committed to the process of self-exploration and self-development.
LIFESTYLE MEDICINE
Defined by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine as ”the use of a whole food, plant-predominant dietary lifestyle, regular physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances and positive social connection as a primary therapeutic modality for treatment and reversal of chronic disease.”
INTEGRATIVE LIFESTYLE MEDICINE.
…combines these concepts in a healing-oriented medicine that takes account of the whole person -body, mind, and spirit - including all aspects of lifestyle. It emphasizes the therapeutic relationship and makes use of all appropriate therapies, both conventional and alternative.
