The Advent of Lifestyle Medicine

The fact that lifestyle is closely associated with the pathogenesis of chronic diseases has been known for more than three decades. Smoking may cause lung cancer, and a lifestyle of fast food consumption and little exercise can cause metabolic diseases. The importance of lifestyle changes in terms of a new medical paradigm to solve chronic diseases is becoming popular in modern times. Lifestyle medicine is a medicine based on personal lifestyle. To apply it to patients and ordinary people, physicians have to cooperate with experts in many fields such as nutrition, exercise, psychology, etc. In addition, patients must be partners in the treatment rather than passive recipients. The advent of lifestyle medicine has been caused by changes in disease patterns. In the past, acute diseases like infectious disease were prevalent; however, in the late 20(th) century, chronic diseases such as metabolic diseases, cancers, neurological disease, etc. increased in occurrence. As lifestyle is closely related with these diseases, the attitudes toward medicine need to be changed. Recently, the concept of “Lifestyle Medicine” was proposed, and we predict it will be an important field in future medicine.