Self care and self management are important elements of lifestyle medicine

What is lifestyle Medicine?

Using evidence-based lifetyle therapeutic approaches to prevent, treat and sometimes even reverse life-style related chronic diseases.

This approch includes 5 key pillars (and other non-drug modalities to promote health and prevent disease)

  1. A predominantly whole food plant-based diet

  2. Regular physical acitivity

  3. Adequate and quality sleep

  4. Stress management

  5. Avoidance of risky substance use (eg smoking, alcohol, environmental toxins)

What are chronic diseases?

These include common diseases seen in western societs that are often influenced by lifestyle choices eg.

  1. Heart and other vascular diseaes

  2. Hypertesion (high blood pressure)

  3. Hypercholesterolaemia (high cholesterol)

  4. Diabetes (type 2),

  5. Overweight/obesity

  6. Some cancers

Fresh vegetables including broccoli, zucchinis, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and other produce at a market stand

The Nutritional Science

Nutritional factors play a key role in our health and our ability to heal and detect and fight disease.

Two key elements to reduce the risk for many common cancers is the stength of our immune system and a reduction in inflammation.

Nutrtional factors that improve immune function and reduce inflammation are those with high micronutrient value

eg. high antioxidant foods = anti-inflammatory foods

highest anti-oxidant/anti-inflammatory cpds are found in plants eg. cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale, bok choy), dark berries and fruits (blueberries, raspberries, peomegranates), Allium vegetables (garlic, onions, leeks), Orange, yellow and dark green vegetables and fruits (carrots, mango, orange and purple potato), dark leafy greens (spinach, swiss chard, dark lettuce eg rocket)

Foods that increase inflammation and have low nutrient value are

  1. Processed grains and sugars (eg sugar, white bread)

  2. Processed meats and red meat (sausages, bacon, ham, prosciutto etc) are also known Class I carcinogens (known human carcinogen)

  3. Harmful fats: trans fats found in highly processed oils, oxidised fats (from heat or rancidity) and solid fats (lard, butter, meat, dairy and tropical oils eg palm oil.

What are food carcinogens

Food carcinogens are either formed from the cooking process or related to the digestible products (metabolites) of certain foods. They cause damage to healthy cells and increase risk for cancer formation (1)


1. Class I food carcinogens include: processed meats eg. ham, sausages, salami, prosciutto and other deli meats

2. Class 2 carcionognes include: red meats eg beef, lamb, pork etc

Cooking meat at high temperatures also produces carcinogenic compounds eg. HCA, PAH

1 Source