The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) will host its annual conference October 28 – 30, 2013, at the Renaissance Arlington Capitol View Hotel in Crystal City, Virginia, located just outside Washington D.C.
The conference, entitled The Treat the Cause Movement Begins, will feature prominent keynote speakers, powerful new documentaries, networking with industry leaders, a tradeshow pavilion, a membership meeting with a state of the industry report and world renowned regional and international experts who will present the state of the science and the powerful rationale for lifestyle medicine.
“Unlike typical health care, lifestyle medicine focuses on collaborative patient-provider relationships and positive, evidence-based lifestyle changes as the basis for health care,” explains Dr. Marc Braman, the Executive Director and past President of ACLM. “Our vision is to position ACLM as the catalyst for a social movement as more and more patients come to expect and demand lifestyle medical options so that they can regain hope and control over their own health care.”
Lifestyle medicine is based on the use of lifestyle interventions such as nutrition, exercise, stress management, smoking cessation and a variety of other non-drug modalities in the treatment and management of disease. A growing body of scientific evidence has demonstrated that lifestyle medicine should be the foundation of treatment for chronic disease. It can be as effective as medication, but without the risks and unwanted side-effects.
More than 250 physicians, health care professionals, prominent leaders in lifestyle medicine, supporting organizations, press, politicians, leadership volunteers from throughout the US and other parts of the world and the general public interested in making a difference in their health and the health of others are expected to attend this event.
The program being assembled by ACLM for this year's conference will provide an opportunity for lifestyle medical champions from all over the world to convene, network, learn and help shape the future of the profession. Attendees will have the chance to hear from and interact with a powerful line-up of groundbreaking pioneers of the Lifestyle Medicine movement. Confirmed speakers to date include:
• Steven N. Blair, PED, Professor in the Departments of Exercise Science and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina. Dr. Blair is one of the foremost international experts on exercise science.
• T. Colin Campbell, PhD, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell and author of “The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long Term Health”.
• Dr. Hans Diehl, DRHSC, MPH, CNS, FACN, founder of the Lifestyle Medicine Institute and the Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP). The clinical results of Dr. Diehl's pioneering efforts as an epidemiologically trained lifestyle interventionist with CHIP have been published in more than 25 scientific journal articles. Through CHIP he has shown more than 50,000 graduates how simple lifestyle changes can facilitate the reversal of many Western diseases.
• Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD, who has been associated with the Cleveland Clinic since 1968. During that time, he has served as President of the Staff and as a member of the Board of Governors. He is best known for his work demonstrating reversal of severe heart disease.
• Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, Professor of Medicine, Physiology and Biophysics,Director of the General Clinical Research Unit, Director of the Bone Health Care Clinic and the Director of the Vitamin D, Skin and Bone Research Laboratory at Boston University Medical Center. He is a foremost international expert on vitamin D science.
• David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, the founding (1998) director of Yale University’s Prevention Reseach Center. Dr. Katz is also Founder at National Exchange for Weight Loss Resistance, Editor-in-Chief at Childhood Obesity, and Chief Science Officer at NuVal, a nutritional scoring system developed by an independent panel of nutrition and medical experts. Dr. Katz is the current president-elect of ACLM.
• Dean Ornish, MD, the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Ornish is a high profile pioneer and leading advocate of Lifestyle Medicine.
• Edward M. Phillips, MD, Founder/Director of the Institute for Lifestyle Medicine affiliated with Harvard, Assistant Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School and Director of Outpatient Medical Services of the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Network in Boston, Massachusetts.
• Robert Whitaker, the author of four books, two of which tell of the history of psychiatry. At the Lifestyle Medicine 2013 conference, he will share highlights from his newest book on this topic, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, which won the Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism in 2010.
A number of sponsorship opportunities exist for organizations who would like to support the conference. Involvement with the Lifestyle Medicine 2013 event positions sponsors as innovators and benefactors of the growing lifestyle medicine movement, not just in the United States, but around the world.
ACLM's 2012 conference, Lifestyle Medicine 2012: Treating the Cause, held last fall in Denver, Colorado, received rave reviews from attendees. Commenting on last year's event, Sharon Montes, an MD from Loveland, CO, said, “As a physician who has been involved in practice and teaching of wellness and lifestyle medicine for over 20 years, this conference was awesome. I appreciated the caliber of lectures provided by national and international leaders as well as experiential components of the conference.”
About ACLM
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) is the first national specialty society for clinicians emphasizing the use of lifestyle interventions in the treatment and management of disease. With members across the United States and international membership growing rapidly, ACLM answers the need for quality education, the development of formal certification for the practice of clinical Lifestyle Medicine, and the necessary support and advocacy functions for this new field. ACLM membership is comprised of health care professionals of all types, including primary care physicians, specialists, researchers, professors, students, public spokespersons, hospital administrators, nutritionists, public health professionals and many others.