The Medical clinics of North America
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Med. Clin. North Am. · Nov 2023
ReviewRethinking Health and Health Care: How Clinicians and Practice Groups Can Better Promote Whole Health and Well-Being for People and Communities.
A new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, "Achieving Whole Health: A New Approach for Veterans and the Nation," redefines what it means to be healthy and creates a roadmap for health systems, including the Veterans Health Administration and the nation, to scale and spread a whole health approach to care. The report identifies 5 foundational elements for whole health care and sets 6 national, state, and local policy goals for change. This article summarizes the report, emphasizes the importance of preventive medicine, and identifies concrete actions clinicians and practices can take now to deliver whole health care.
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Med. Clin. North Am. · Nov 2023
ReviewTreatment Updates for Pain Management and Opioid Use Disorder.
The medical community has proposed several clinical recommendations to promote patient safety and health amid the opioid overdose public health crisis. For a frontline practicing physician, distilling the evidence and implementing the latest guidelines may prove challenging. This article aims to highlight pertinent updates and clinical care pearls as they relate to primary care management of chronic pain and opioid use disorder.
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Med. Clin. North Am. · Nov 2023
ReviewLifestyle Medicine: Prevention, Treatment, and Reversal of Disease.
Lifestyle medicine (LM) expands the scope of preventive medicine by focusing on the promotion of healthy lifestyles while preventing, treating, and reversing the vast majority of chronic diseases caused by behaviors and environmental factors. LM focuses on six pillars-a plant-predominant eating pattern; physical movement; restorative sleep; management of stress; avoidance of risky substances; and positive social connections. Advances in LM competencies, education, certification, resources, and practice models are accelerating with a particular need and focus on underserved and most seriously impacted patients and communities. A comprehensive and integrated strategy addressing "whole person health" is emerging as a compelling framework for providers and health systems which combines a foundational commitment to prevention with a systematic approach to the actual and root causes of premature disease, disability, and death.
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Med. Clin. North Am. · Nov 2023
ReviewAddressing Obesity: Implementing Evidence-Based Lifestyle Prevention and Treatment Strategies in Clinical Practice.
The prevalence of obesity continues to increase in the United States and globally, placing a large portion of the population at an increased risk of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. Primary care settings remain the main access point for medical care and preventive medical services for most individuals and thus represent a key environment for treating and managing obesity. Several recent pragmatic trials conducted in primary care have demonstrated clinically significant weight loss and associated reductions in chronic disease risk factors, highlighting the need to translate these programs into mainstream clinical care.
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Wearable devices providing health-related data (mobile health [mHealth]) have grown in numbers and types of data available over the past 2 decades. Applications in prevention with some of the longest track records are activity trackers to promote fitness (primary prevention), mobile electrocardiogram devices to detect arrhythmias (secondary prevention), and continuous glucose monitoring to improve glycemic control in type 2 diabetes (tertiary prevention). Continued integration of multiple diverse data streams and improved interfaces with individuals (such as artificial intelligence-driven health coaches), and health care teams (as in the hospital-at-home concept), promise to optimize use of mHealth to improve clinical and public health outcomes.