Defining a Structure and Methodology for the Practice of Lifestyle Medicine.

Lifestyle medicine (LM) is a relatively new branch of clinical practice (like travel medicine, sports medicine, etc), but to date with little accepted structure or methodology. The current review extends a previous attempt to define the determinants of chronic disease by expanding this to include (1) the knowledge base (the science) or epidemiology of chronic disease, (2) the skills (the art) or practice of LM, (3) the tools (the materials) that can add to LM diagnoses and prescription, and (4) the procedures (the actions) that help update conventional medicine to include practices required for a new era of lifestyle and environmentally related chronic disease.