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WHAT IS LIFESTYLE MEDICINE - WHERE DID IT START?
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The Chiropractic Profession is an advanced form of the healing arts dating from the late 1800s in the USA. One could say by virtue of being a drugless form of health care, Chiropractors have aways promoted Lifestyle as central to their roll. Today the body's innate intelligence is recognised as one of the most powerful influencers of health. Inasmuch, Chiropractors have found proper structure of the body is a gateway to understanding where the stress and dysfunction is and how to unlock it. Following with the pillars of lifestyle medicine (avoid risky substances, eat a plant based diet, exercise regularly, cultivate relationships, sleep well and avoid excessive stress)
A Chiropractic Physician is first trained as a primary health care doctor to diagnose and prescribe a proper treatment based on objective findings. (History, physical exams, laboratory tests, imaging and counselling) When drugs or surgery needs are ruled out, chiropractors use gentle hands-on modalities, nutrition, exercise, and counselling to aid in all aspects of patients behaviour towards rehabilitation and a better lifestyle. "Lifestyle Medicine" now an organised speciality, embraces this holistic philosophy with evidenced based science, focusing directly on Chronic Degenerative Disease (societies number one healthcare burden).
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Founded in 2004, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) is the medical professional society for physicians and other professionals dedicated to clinical and worksite practice of Lifestyle Medicine as the foundation of a transformed and sustainable health care system. The practice involves the use of evidence-based therapeutic approaches, such as eating a predominantly whole food, plant-based diet, getting regular physical activity, adequate sleep, managing stress, avoiding the use of risky substances, and pursuing other non-drug modalities to treat, reverse, and prevent chronic disease.
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Today, Lifestyle Medicine is taught as part of the curricula at over 108 medical schools in the USA and there are international societies, colleges, and associations in over 18 countries and growing annually. The Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine (ASLM) is the second-largest group worldwide and includes New Zealand. The British Society of Lifestyle Medicine is the third largest.
Modifying our behaviour, we can use lifestyle as a medicine to follow the science and get to the cause of 70% of all illness:
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Eat Well - mostly plants
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Move More - every 20 minutes, 30-60 minutes each day
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Sleep Well - it's 1/3rd of your life
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Love More - positive relationships and choice
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Stress Less - take action to find happiness and avoid negativity
These are scientifically proven lifesaving concepts. Doctors specialised in this area keep up to date with the latest methods to help you implement the correct behaviours at the right times in your life.
The Lifestyle Medicine Global Alliance (LMGA) gives medical leadership and a world-wide strategy via international chapters. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recognises Lifestyle Medicine and the LMGA as the answer to "non-communicable disease" and looks to our organisations as the experts on the global "Syndemic" of Lifestyle and Chronic Degenerative Diseases.
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WHERE IS IT USED AND HOW?
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Lifestyle as Medicine yields superior clinical results. According to Dr Dean Ornish, MD. it is paid for by insurance and national health in the USA, saving six dollars for every one invested. Lifestyle interventional programs achieve over 85-90% success rate in maintaining lifestyle and health-promoting habits in one year. These high retention and success rates are due in large part to Lifestyle Medicine's focus on behaviour as the driving force away from chronic degenerative disease.
WHY NOW?
Medical practice today is mostly symptom based, It promotes the articulate diagnosis and treatment of disease as it occurs with medication and surgical intervention the expected norm. Standard medical care admits it struggles to deal with patients who have a chronic disease and it is bankrupting the modern world's economies.
WHY STARK
For 100's years science has told us lifestyle is the root cause of chronic degenerative diseases regardless of age - I am tired of watching people die of preventable and reversible illnesses.
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Heart attack and stroke kills one out of two – 80% preventable
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Cancer kills one out of three - 50%preventable / modifiable
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Fatigue, depression and pain - 70% affected
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Obesity, diabetes and digestive disorders 70 % - toxic food poisoning
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Allergy, auto-immune disorders, arthritis and neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimers' and Parkinson's Disease - Lifestyle related
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1 in 3 men are infertile
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1 in 4 women with Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome.
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50 percent have low libido (sex drive)
What does The Stark Protocol look like?
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STOP eating for a few days, rest the body, clean the body, return to a whole plant based diet.
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STARK devoid of clutter, obvious, emptiness, sunyata.
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NAKED bare, without distraction, open, original.
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REALITY what is now, without interpretation, real.
Change this paradigm and those "ripples" will alter the health of those around you. Getting back to connection with nature is essential for health at any level.
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LIFESTYLE MEDICINE IS NOT ALTERNATIVE -
IT IS A HIGHLY LOGICAL COMPLEMENTARY HEALTH CARE PRESCRIPTION
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WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY
"Chronic degenerative diseases are affecting every aspect of how we live as people, societies, countries, and planet." Professor Boyd Swinburn, PhD. The University of Auckland has called it "The Global Syndemic of our time". (The Lancet Commission Jan. 2019)
NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION
When you suffer from symptoms of a chronic disease your lifestyle is a factor and you need to help yourself to aid your burden on family, friends and society.
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Read and listen to our information, checkout the resources and join our community of workshops and self education- it's that simple. Stark - simple!
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