Conditions and Diseases That Can Be Prevented And Treated With Lifestyle and Preventive Medicine

This post will begin a series of posts focusing on specific conditions that can be modified with the use of lifestyle and preventive type interventions that focus on the modifiable risk factors. At this point, I will enumerate all conditions for which there is evidence of impact through modification of lifestyle related risk factors. I will then go on to talk in depth about the most important diseases affecting our society – the so called “killer diseases” : heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes

A. Obesity

B. Hypertension

C. Dyslipidemia

D. Impaired Glucose Tolerance/Metabolic Syndrome

E. Type 2 Diabetes

F. Cardiovascular Disease

G. Stroke

H. Heart Failure

I. Peripheral Artery Disease

J. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

K. Osteoarthritis

L. Rheumatoid arthritis

M. Cancer – All

N. Breast Cancer

O. Osteoporosis

P. Depression

Q. Fibromyalgia

R. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

S. Type 1 diabetes

T. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

U. Multiple Sclerosis

V. Parkinson’s

W. Cognitive Impairment/Dementia

X. Chronic Low Back Pain


Take home message: Preventive and lifestyle medicine approaches can be applied to a variety of diseases and conditions in order to improve their respective health outcomes. Most of the modifiable lifestyle risk factors overlap with each other and therefore tend to affect a multitude of conditions so the good news is that by focusing on this set of modifiable risk factors (smoking, diet, exercise, sleep, stress), we can prevent and treat a myriad diseases. Talking to your doctor about these risk factors that you can change with a comprehensive approach to prevention will tend to prevent the development of most of these diseases.