Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine
Guest
: Donna Mueller, DO, MS, C-IAYT
From the Show: UPMC Pinnacle
Dr. Donna Mueller explains what lifestyle medicine is and the theory behind it.
Transcription:
Bill Klaproth:(Host) What is lifestyle medicine? What is the theory behind it and how can it help you? Let's learn more with Dr. Donna Mueller, a lifestyle medicine physician with Heartland Family Health in Lititz. This is Healthier You, a podcast from UPMC Pinnacle, I'm Bill Klaproth. Dr. Mueller thank you for your time. It is great to talk with you. So first off, what is lifestyle medicine, and what's the theory behind it?
Dr. Donna Mueller: (Guest) So great to talk to you, thank you. Lifestyle medicine involves the use of evidence-based therapeutic approaches to help people with their health. Predominantly whole food plant-based diet, exercise, we do stress management. Avoidance of risky substances, such as tobacco and alcohol, we focus on sleep and we help people build and maintain a healthy relationship.
Host: So all things that can help you with your wellness. So then what happens to your health when one or more of these pillars that you were just mentioning are neglected?
Dr. Mueller: Well, if you've ever lost the night of sleep, you know, it can make you a little irritable, which can, in turn, affect, perhaps your relationships, and then lead to more stress. And then maybe, the stress, you don't get your exercise in. And because you're stressed to reach for something that's probably not the best food choice, like a bag of potato chips. So it's just like a domino effect. When we take care of all these different components are more likely to lead a healthier life.
Host: So we've heard of other specialties of medicine. What goes into being board certified in lifestyle medicine?
Dr. Mueller: In lifestyle medicine, you can obtain board certification. It's actually very new. It came about in 2017 and you must be specialized in another discipline first. So you have to have a primary specialty that you're already boarded in, but then you apply. You have to study severe case reviews and see patients. And then you may sit for the exam after having met your educational requirements. But the key is you actually have to live the lifestyle medicine philosophy. You cannot practice this discipline without being a practitioner yourself.
Host: So if you have a chronic condition, like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, how does lifestyle medicine help?
Dr. Mueller: Lifestyle medicine attacks the root of the problem. It actually helps you at a cellular level to overcome these conditions. You can actually prevent them, but you can also reverse them. So by enhancing someone's health through the improvement of blood flow, delivery of oxygen to the tissues gets better. All of a sudden people start to drop weight. And you become overall healthier with the need for less medication or no medication.
Host: And no medication is the best way. We've heard about COVID-19 and how it generally attacks people with underlying conditions. How can lifestyle medicine help in the fight against COVID-19?
Dr. Mueller: So with COVID initially it was thought to be a respiratory illness, but as we learn more and more, we're seeing that it's actually a disease of the endothelium or the lining of the blood vessels. So it goes everywhere in the body, creating blood clots, creating all kinds of issues for people. And when you live this lifestyle medicine philosophy out when you focus on eating this way and being the healthiest you can be, you're enhancing those blood vessel linings ability to oxygenate to deliver the necessary component of life, to all your tissues. Therefore, you can reduce hypertension, you can reduce the diabetes, and hopefully avoid being hospitalized in the first place. But if you do contract COVID, you have a better shot at coming through it.
Host: That's good news and something we all should pay attention to. And then you were mentioning that the goal is to try to get people off of medications. Can lifestyle medicine actually gets you off of prescription medications?
Dr. Mueller: It sure can and the thing is it's really important to do it with a physician or allied health professional because it often happens quickly. So the changes in cholesterol could be within two weeks. If you adopt the whole food plant-based diet right away. In terms of diabetic medication, it requires monitoring. If someone's on insulin and they go on this program, they will see a rapid drop in their blood sugars. And therefore the medications need adjustments along the way and monitoring, but it's really impressive how people come through this and get off of their medications.
Host: So you've been talking about these pillars of wellness, healthy eating, sleep, physical activity, stress. relationships, all those types of things and we already have a lot of advice out there about how to live healthy. So what is the benefit of consulting with a lifestyle medicine provider?
Dr. Mueller: As I brought up, so medications are key. So people transitioning to a whole food plant-based diet, if they're already on medicines, they're not gonna need them for long. So we need to monitor people very closely and we need to guide them through the process to make sure that they're not harmed in coming off of something, say like insulin. But in terms of the overall advice out there is a lot of advice. There's a whole lot of advice, but what lifestyle medicine practitioners give is the advice that's evidence-based and it's approved by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. So it's part of our core curriculum to know all the latest research and to keep up on this data so that we can share it with our patients and the primaries as well because the primary care physician needs to be brought into the loop as to what we're doing and so we do that. We communicate very detailed information.
Host: So then you do work with someone's current primary care provider.
Dr. Mueller: Yes, we talk on a regular basis. We also work with the specialists because there's lots of specialists involved. If a person comes to me, they have multiple specialists. They all get copied on the letter, or I might call them I've called more than one lately to ask about certain medications, why the patients on them, and what that person would like to do for the patient in terms of, can we keep this, should ween it or, get rid of it altogether and try this instead because there's other ways to go about certain treatments that might not always be medication.
Host: So then how do you work with patients? What does a typical appointment look like?
Dr. Mueller: So patients generally right now during COVID come to me on telemed, I do see people in person, but for the most part, we're on a video chat. And its typical visits an hour in length, sometimes more where we go through the diet yeah physical activity, and that's the thing. So primary care physicians are very busy. They don't maybe have the time to go through every diet history. When I take physical activity information, I'm actually doing it, it's a vital sign. I might look at your heart rate or blood pressure or weight. I'm also looking at physical activity as a vital sign. That's truly what we consider it. So if they're not doing anything physical, they're like missing a whole vital sign.
Host: A whole component of lifestyle medicine. Cause that physical activity is an important component of that it sounds like. So then if you had one recommendation to get people on the path to living a healthier life, what would it be?
Dr. Mueller: I would recommend that all patients adopt a whole food plant-based diet. They don't have to eliminate all animal products. But if they could minimize them, maybe go to a day a week where they don't have any, and start to gradually change behaviors because what was in those plants that was Given to us as health is being taken out and processed food. And the less processed food we eat, the healthier we seem to be. Physicians knew this for a long time.
Host: Staying away from processed food and red meat and trying to incorporate more of a plant-based diet into our lifestyle is really important. Dr. Mueller, this has been fascinating thank you so much for your time.
Dr. Mueller: Thank you.
Host: That's Dr. Donna Mueller. And to find out more about lifestyle medicine, visit UPMC pinnacle.com/lifestylemedicine, or call Heartland family health had (717) 627-4088. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is healthier You, a podcast from UPMC Pinnacle, I'm Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth:(Host) What is lifestyle medicine? What is the theory behind it and how can it help you? Let's learn more with Dr. Donna Mueller, a lifestyle medicine physician with Heartland Family Health in Lititz. This is Healthier You, a podcast from UPMC Pinnacle, I'm Bill Klaproth. Dr. Mueller thank you for your time. It is great to talk with you. So first off, what is lifestyle medicine, and what's the theory behind it?
Dr. Donna Mueller: (Guest) So great to talk to you, thank you. Lifestyle medicine involves the use of evidence-based therapeutic approaches to help people with their health. Predominantly whole food plant-based diet, exercise, we do stress management. Avoidance of risky substances, such as tobacco and alcohol, we focus on sleep and we help people build and maintain a healthy relationship.
Host: So all things that can help you with your wellness. So then what happens to your health when one or more of these pillars that you were just mentioning are neglected?
Dr. Mueller: Well, if you've ever lost the night of sleep, you know, it can make you a little irritable, which can, in turn, affect, perhaps your relationships, and then lead to more stress. And then maybe, the stress, you don't get your exercise in. And because you're stressed to reach for something that's probably not the best food choice, like a bag of potato chips. So it's just like a domino effect. When we take care of all these different components are more likely to lead a healthier life.
Host: So we've heard of other specialties of medicine. What goes into being board certified in lifestyle medicine?
Dr. Mueller: In lifestyle medicine, you can obtain board certification. It's actually very new. It came about in 2017 and you must be specialized in another discipline first. So you have to have a primary specialty that you're already boarded in, but then you apply. You have to study severe case reviews and see patients. And then you may sit for the exam after having met your educational requirements. But the key is you actually have to live the lifestyle medicine philosophy. You cannot practice this discipline without being a practitioner yourself.
Host: So if you have a chronic condition, like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, how does lifestyle medicine help?
Dr. Mueller: Lifestyle medicine attacks the root of the problem. It actually helps you at a cellular level to overcome these conditions. You can actually prevent them, but you can also reverse them. So by enhancing someone's health through the improvement of blood flow, delivery of oxygen to the tissues gets better. All of a sudden people start to drop weight. And you become overall healthier with the need for less medication or no medication.
Host: And no medication is the best way. We've heard about COVID-19 and how it generally attacks people with underlying conditions. How can lifestyle medicine help in the fight against COVID-19?
Dr. Mueller: So with COVID initially it was thought to be a respiratory illness, but as we learn more and more, we're seeing that it's actually a disease of the endothelium or the lining of the blood vessels. So it goes everywhere in the body, creating blood clots, creating all kinds of issues for people. And when you live this lifestyle medicine philosophy out when you focus on eating this way and being the healthiest you can be, you're enhancing those blood vessel linings ability to oxygenate to deliver the necessary component of life, to all your tissues. Therefore, you can reduce hypertension, you can reduce the diabetes, and hopefully avoid being hospitalized in the first place. But if you do contract COVID, you have a better shot at coming through it.
Host: That's good news and something we all should pay attention to. And then you were mentioning that the goal is to try to get people off of medications. Can lifestyle medicine actually gets you off of prescription medications?
Dr. Mueller: It sure can and the thing is it's really important to do it with a physician or allied health professional because it often happens quickly. So the changes in cholesterol could be within two weeks. If you adopt the whole food plant-based diet right away. In terms of diabetic medication, it requires monitoring. If someone's on insulin and they go on this program, they will see a rapid drop in their blood sugars. And therefore the medications need adjustments along the way and monitoring, but it's really impressive how people come through this and get off of their medications.
Host: So you've been talking about these pillars of wellness, healthy eating, sleep, physical activity, stress. relationships, all those types of things and we already have a lot of advice out there about how to live healthy. So what is the benefit of consulting with a lifestyle medicine provider?
Dr. Mueller: As I brought up, so medications are key. So people transitioning to a whole food plant-based diet, if they're already on medicines, they're not gonna need them for long. So we need to monitor people very closely and we need to guide them through the process to make sure that they're not harmed in coming off of something, say like insulin. But in terms of the overall advice out there is a lot of advice. There's a whole lot of advice, but what lifestyle medicine practitioners give is the advice that's evidence-based and it's approved by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. So it's part of our core curriculum to know all the latest research and to keep up on this data so that we can share it with our patients and the primaries as well because the primary care physician needs to be brought into the loop as to what we're doing and so we do that. We communicate very detailed information.
Host: So then you do work with someone's current primary care provider.
Dr. Mueller: Yes, we talk on a regular basis. We also work with the specialists because there's lots of specialists involved. If a person comes to me, they have multiple specialists. They all get copied on the letter, or I might call them I've called more than one lately to ask about certain medications, why the patients on them, and what that person would like to do for the patient in terms of, can we keep this, should ween it or, get rid of it altogether and try this instead because there's other ways to go about certain treatments that might not always be medication.
Host: So then how do you work with patients? What does a typical appointment look like?
Dr. Mueller: So patients generally right now during COVID come to me on telemed, I do see people in person, but for the most part, we're on a video chat. And its typical visits an hour in length, sometimes more where we go through the diet yeah physical activity, and that's the thing. So primary care physicians are very busy. They don't maybe have the time to go through every diet history. When I take physical activity information, I'm actually doing it, it's a vital sign. I might look at your heart rate or blood pressure or weight. I'm also looking at physical activity as a vital sign. That's truly what we consider it. So if they're not doing anything physical, they're like missing a whole vital sign.
Host: A whole component of lifestyle medicine. Cause that physical activity is an important component of that it sounds like. So then if you had one recommendation to get people on the path to living a healthier life, what would it be?
Dr. Mueller: I would recommend that all patients adopt a whole food plant-based diet. They don't have to eliminate all animal products. But if they could minimize them, maybe go to a day a week where they don't have any, and start to gradually change behaviors because what was in those plants that was Given to us as health is being taken out and processed food. And the less processed food we eat, the healthier we seem to be. Physicians knew this for a long time.
Host: Staying away from processed food and red meat and trying to incorporate more of a plant-based diet into our lifestyle is really important. Dr. Mueller, this has been fascinating thank you so much for your time.
Dr. Mueller: Thank you.
Host: That's Dr. Donna Mueller. And to find out more about lifestyle medicine, visit UPMC pinnacle.com/lifestylemedicine, or call Heartland family health had (717) 627-4088. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is healthier You, a podcast from UPMC Pinnacle, I'm Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.
