title: Who will deliver comprehensive healthy lifestyle interventions to combat non-communicable disease? Introducing the healthy lifestyle practitioner discipline.
abstract: Unhealthy lifestyle characteristics (i.e., physical inactivity, excess body mass, poor diet, and smoking) as well as associated poor health metrics (i.e., dyslipidemia, hyperglycemia, and hypertension) are the primary reasons for the current non-communicable disease crisis. Compared to those with the poorest of lifestyles and associated health metrics, any movement toward improving lifestyle and associated health metrics improves health outcomes. To address the non-communicable disease crisis we must: 1) acknowledge that healthy lifestyle (HL) interventions are a potent medicine; and 2) move toward a healthcare system that embraces primordial as much as, if not more than, secondary prevention with a heavy focus on HL medicine. This article introduces the Healthy Lifestyle Practitioner, focused on training health professionals to deliver HL medicine.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Physical Therapy, Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition, and Integrative Physiology Laboratory, College of Applied Science , University of Illinois , Chicago , IL , USA.
authors.forename: Ross
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Arena
authors.affiliation: b Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute, Ochsner Clinical School , The University of Queensland School of Medicine , New Orleans , LA , USA.
authors.forename: Carl J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Lavie
authors.affiliation: c Department of Population Medicine , Harvard Medical School/Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute , Boston , MA , USA.|d Diabetes Unit , Massachusetts General Hospital , Boston , MA , USA.
authors.forename: Marie-France
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Hivert
authors.affiliation: e Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine , Creighton University School of Medicine , Omaha , NE , USA.
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.affiliation: f Office of Institutional Analytics , University of New Mexico , Albuquerque , NM , USA.
authors.forename: Paige D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Briggs
authors.affiliation: g Heart Failure Unit and Cardiopulmonary Laboratory, Cardiology, I.R.C.C.S. , Policlinico San Donato University Hospital , Milan , Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guazzi
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D006281:Health Occupations / Q000193:education*; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D008019:Life Style; D008659:Metabolic Diseases / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D050177:Overweight / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects; D000074606:Smoking Prevention
keywords: Obesity; diabetes; dyslipidemia; exercise; healthy diet; hypertension; physical inactivity; poor nutrition; smoking cessation; tobacco; weight loss