Abstract

No other medical professional association has advocated that the field it represents become healthcare’s foundation; yet, this is express in
“The driving force in my professional life, after completing medical school and much of residency in preventive medicine with a degree in epidemiology, was the blinding flash of the obvious that our medical system was doing things backwards in many ways and needed a medical specialty focused on treating causes instead of symptoms—a specialty that could reverse disease with lifestyle changes. The fact that intensive lifestyle change could reverse disease had been demonstrated in multiple rigorous trials by 2003. Working with a small group of medical professionals as advisors, I worked to establish a new medical specialty dedicated to using lifestyle change to reverse disease—the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. I was surprised and very thankful to receive an AMA Foundation Excellence in Medicine Award as a Young Physician for my leadership in establishing ACLM because it gave credibility to the organization. After much dialog back and forth, the ‘founding group’ came to the consensus that what was needed was a new specialty and not just an interest group for all specialties. The knowledge base and practice setting for intensive lifestyle medicine was unlike any existing specialty; there was an unfilled niche. We called it Lifestyle Medicine. Others had coined the term, but we adopted it and, I believe, made it ‘the brand.’ One of our goals was to coalesce the rising field of lifestyle medicine around evidence-based methods and research evidence. Because many of us in the founding group were affiliated with Loma Linda University, a faith-based institution, we knew it was vital to ensure that ACLM was established as a secular professional specialty—a non-sectarian, evidence-based, professional, specialty society. Another goal was to embrace divergent methods that were evidence-based, and exclude dogmatic and unscientific methods. Our founding group agreed we would follow the best evidence, no matter where it should lead. Twenty years later, this remains ACLM’s staunch commitment.”
Dr Kelly expresses his gratitude for what ultimately became the 100 founding members of the College and its founding Advisory Board members, which included his friends and colleagues Drs. Walter Willett, David Jenkins, James Prochaska, Hans Diehl, John McDougall, Brenda Rea, Wayne Dysinger, T. Colin Campbell, Marc Braman, Joel Fuhrman, Caldwell Esselstyn, Sylvia Cramer, George Guthrie, Michael Greger, John Westerdahl, Ron Stout and many others who were early champions of the field.
A number of these individuals and other lifestyle medicine pioneers have been recognized as ACLM award recipients. The
Milestone anniversaries are important times to revisit history: It was the unsustainable chronic disease trends and their associated costs that were a driving force in ACLM’s birth—with the urgency that the founders felt then being even more magnified today.
John Kelly, MD, MPH, FACLM, DipABLM, Intensivist (2004-2008)
Marc Braman, MD, MPH, FACLM, DipABLM (2008-2009)
Wayne Dysinger, MD, MPH, FACLM, DipABLM, Intensivist (2009-2012)
Liana Lianov, MD, MPH, FACLM, DipABLM (2012-2014)
David Katz, MD, MPH, FACLM (2014-2016)
George Guthrie, MD, MPH, FACLM, DipABLM (2016-2018)
Dexter Shurney, MD, MBA, MPH, FACLM, DipABLM (2018-2020)
Cate Collings, MD, FACLM, DipABLM (2020-2022)
Beth Frates, MD, FACLM, DipABLM (2022-present)
Since the inaugural ABLM and IBLM exams in 2017,
The accomplishments of ACLM’s first 15 years were impressive; yet, the growth in size, reach and scope has accelerated over these past five years: • ACLM’s annual conference has seen record-breaking attendance each of the past 10+ years: With a sell-out attendance of 2000 in person and more than 1000 virtual in 2023, the LM2024 event, set for October 27-30 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort and Spa in Orlando, FL, will cap at 2500 in person attendees, recognizing Lore Health as the featured presenting sponsor. • ACLM’s Corporate Roundtable has evolved into ACLM’s showcased Platinum Partners and the Institutional Innovators Council. • Membership has increased from just under 4000 five years ago to what is now 11,000, nearly 60% of whom are physicians, with expansion of ACLM member benefits and engagement opportunities. • ACLM Member Interest Groups (MIGs) have grown from the first three, established in 2015, to what are now 30, with some having upwards of 1000 members. • ACLM’s Health Equity Achieved through Lifestyle Medicine (HEAL) Initiative was established in 2020 to address lifestyle-related chronic disease health disparities. • Collaboration with other members of the Lifestyle Medicine Global Alliance (LMGA), facilitated by IBLM, on the Lifestyle Medicine Core Competencies: 2022 Update.
ACLM’s Student/Trainees are a thriving segment of ACLM’s membership, representing medicine’s future leaders: • The first Lifestyle Medicine Interest Group (LMIG), established at Harvard Medical School by current ACLM President Beth Frates, was the seed planted that has now grown to over 140 LMIGs on campuses across the U.S.; these include 90 medical schools through which students are educated about the six pillars of lifestyle medicine.
• 3rd and 4th editions of the Foundations of Lifestyle Medicine Board Review Course • Lifestyle Medicine Question Bank • Unveiling of the Remission of Type 2 Diabetes and Reversal of Insulin Resistance Certificate course and Type 2 Diabetes Remission Certificate • Debut of the Physician and Health Professional Well-being course (PWB) • Re-launch, in partnership with ACPM, of the Lifestyle Medicine Core Competencies Program (LMCC) • The multi-module Food as Medicine (FAM) for medical professionals course, including: o Nutrition for Prevention and Longevity o Nutrition for Treatment and Risk Reduction o Calorie Density: A Simple Powerful Approach o Nutrition: Preconception, Pregnancy and Postpartum o …with additional modules in development • In coordination with the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine (AJLM), launched CME/CE articles, with six selected each year • Expansion of solely offering AMA PRA Category 1 creditsTM for physicians to offering joint accreditation through Rush University to provide AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™, CNE, CPE, CPEU, ABIM MOC, ABLM MOC, AAFP Prescribed Credits, NBC-HWC, and continuing education credits for psychologists, social workers, physical therapists, and occupational therapists
With the goal of ACLM and ABLM’s 50% FQHC PCP scholarships becoming full ride, in late-2023, ACLM unveiled its National Training Initiative (NTI), announcing ACE as its inaugural NTI Impact Partner, with Impact Partners’ tax-deductible donations to ACLM serving to match ACLM and ABLM’s pledge.
Other ACLM scholarships that have launched over the past five years include: • •
In addition to a focus on CME, ACLM’s graduate medical education (GME), undergraduate medical education (UME) and pre-professional curricula offerings are empowering educators across the country and internationally to integrate lifestyle medicine into their training. • The Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum (LMRC) is now licensed into more than 300 residency programs across the nation, over half of which are family medicine residencies. • ACLM President Beth Frates, MD, FACLM, DipABLM, prior to her election as president, while serving on the ACLM Board of Directors, generously gifted to ACLM the LM101 Curriculum and Syllabus she developed for the highly sought-after course she has taught for many years at the Harvard’s Extension School. The complimentary curriculum is serving to ignite transformation in countless settings across the country and around the world. • Former ACLM Board Member Michelle Hauser, MD, MS, MPA, FACP, FACLM, DipABLM, Chef, and Stanford associate professor, bequeathed her comprehensive Culinary Medicine Curriculum and companion syllabus to ACLM, now having been provided for complimentary download from ACLM’s website over 10,000 times. • The Lifestyle Medicine UME Question Bank was launched in cooperation with the National Board of Medical Examiners and the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine to support medical school faculty with lifestyle medicine related questions to use in Categorical Assessment Tests. • ACLM entered into a strategic partnership with the University of South Carolina, Greenville to support the LMEd open access to a collection of evidence-based curricular resources offered through the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville to train future clinicians in prevention and treatment of lifestyle-related diseases.
ACLM’s • Hosting the first Lifestyle Medicine Reimbursement Summit • Submission of a response to a request for information on the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule of which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) signaled their consideration • Review by ACLM leaders of the National Quality Forum’s (NQF) more than 1000 endorsed measures to identify those that incent and reward lifestyle medicine intervention; the result: few if any • CPQC leadership meetings with representatives of CMS, CMMI, National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), NQF, and the American Academy of Family Practitioners (AAFP) government relations team to advocate for lifestyle medicine payment and quality measure alignment • In collaboration with ACLM’s Member Interest Groups, facilitated the development of a wide array of clinical practice tools and patient-facing educational resources, all available through ACLM Connect, ACLM’s member engagement platform. Select resources include: o Revised LM Reimbursement Road Map o Lifestyle Medicine Shared Medical Appointment (LMSMA) Toolkit o LM for Cancer: Risk Reduction and Survivor Toolkit o Women’s Health During the Reproductive Years Toolkit o Beyond the Numbers: Pediatric Obesity Toolkit o Independent LM Primary Care Practice Toolkit o FQHC/CHC Toolkit o Validated LM assessment tools o Lifestyle medicine electronic medical record template with standard LM data elements—being built and published within Epic o A wide array of patient-facing educational resources
ACLM’s Health Systems Council (HSC) was established in 2022 as a collaborative learning community that has
While research was identified in 2004 as an ACLM priority, the necessary resources weren’t in place until the Lifestyle Medicine Economic Research Consortium, launched in late-2017, evolved to become
ACLM Research Department accomplishments include: • Publication of four expert consensus statements • Development of ACLM’s first clinical practice guideline, “Lifestyle Interventions for Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes and Prediabetes,” with targeted completion by year-end 2024 • Editing and sponsorship of a special issue in Frontiers in Nutrition on food as medicine • Three-year growth of Lifestyle Medicine Conference Abstracts from <30 to >180 submissions • Unveiling in 2020 of ACLM’s Lifestyle Medicine Program Certification, a vetting and recognition of structured LM programs that have demonstrated significant outcomes presented in peer-reviewed publications; a total of seven programs have met the criteria for ACLM Program Certification as either a treatment or education program • Novel, original research projects on topics that include implementation of lifestyle medicine in health systems, global dietary guidelines, reduced burnout among lifestyle medicine practitioners, diabetes remission, medication deprescribing, and others
A full list of organization-sponsored publications are featured on ACLM’s website, including: • ACLM’s position statement on type 2 diabetes remission, introducing the novel idea that remission should “be held as the primary clinical goal and that lifestyle medicine interventions that produce changes leading to remission should therefore become the standard of care” • ACLM’s expert consensus statement: Dietary Interventions to Treat Type 2 Diabetes in Adults with a Goal of Remission; endorsed by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology, supported by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and co-sponsored by the Endocrine Society • Qualitative case series, with the methods paper recently published, on the implementation of lifestyle medicine in health systems, covering the impact of leadership, workplace culture, and workforce training on the growth and implementation of LM across eight diverse health systems • Positive benefits for employee well-being, as our analysis of a cross-sectional survey of 482 respondents interested in LM found that those who practiced more LM as compared to less had a 43% decrease in the odds of experiencing burnout: Top-reported reasons among this sample for the positive benefit of LM included professional satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, and meaningfulness (44%); improved patient outcomes and satisfaction (26%) and enjoyment of teaching/coaching or engaging in relationships (22%)
As ACLM continues to deepen research efforts, we will address more directly the five components of the Quintuple Aim—population health, patient experience, healthcare costs, clinician well-being, and health equity.
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ACLM’s Global Sustainability Committee, over the past two years, has published the following about the intersection of human and planetary heath: • Pathak N, McKinney A. Planetary Health, Climate Change, and Lifestyle Medicine: Threats and Opportunities. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2021 • Pathak N, Pollard KJ, McKinney A. Lifestyle Medicine Interventions for Personal and Planetary Health: The Urgent Need for Action. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2022 • And, finally, a paper pending publication in the Annals of Medicine special issue: From Sustainability to Health: Role of Plant-Based Diets: Health Disparities and Climate Change in the Marshall Islands
While ACLM, over the past 10 years, has developed multiple revenue streams—from CME course offerings and membership to Platinum Partners and our Innovators Council,
Transformative impact happens when we come together as a galvanized force for change. Here’s to the 20 years of impact ACLM is celebrating in 2024—and the exponential impact to come! “People are much happier when they have a worthwhile purpose—a purpose that helps make the world a better place. Lifestyle medicine is, at its core, about helping people make the best, evidence-based choices for living.” – ACLM Founding President John Kelly, MD, MPH, FACLM, DipABLM, Intensivist
In honor of ACLM’s 20th anniversary, and the years to come….
Let’s celebrate, engage, and ignite!
Disclosure: Susan Benigas is the paid Executive Director of the American College of Medicine.
