Lifestyle Medicine: Why Do We Need It?

Modern medicine has its roots in the nineteenth century, when bacteria and viruses were increasingly recognized as the primary cause of the most prevalent diseases of that era. In the early twentieth century, the discovery of antibiotics provided a cure for infectious disease (Aminov, Front Microbiol 1:134, 2010). Moreover, the advent of effective anesthesia allowed more extensive surgery to manage the damage done by accidents. When we got sick, we attended a medical doctor, who prescribed a pill or performed surgery, which essentially cured our illness. This health care model worked perfectly well and still does in case of infectious disease or fractures. However, the nature of contemporary disease has changed profoundly over the last century, and we failed to appropriately adapt our health care system.