University Hospitals is one of the first healthcare systems in the country to receive a grant for this continued education. The “Lifestyle Medicine and Food as Medicine Essentials” course bundle provides a foundational, evidence-based introduction to the field of lifestyle medicine for the prevention and treatment of chronic disease.
The whole health approach is built on the fact that taking care of others starts with taking care of ourselves. The course combines the power of sleep, nutrition, exercise and stress management to help make lifestyle medicine part of the foundation of a transformed healthcare system. “I think these things seem easy, but when you're used to a lifestyle of eating a certain way and behaving a certain way, it is hard to change habits,” Bourisseau said.
Since food is the fuel for our bodies, Bourisseau has introduced diet changes to her life and specifically for the health of her daughter, who was diagnosed with long-haul COVID. “My daughter really likes hot chocolate. One of the things we’ve done is we use cocoa powder, this is organic cocoa powder,” Bourisseau said. “When we make hot chocolate, I’ll put the cocoa powder and we’ll use maple syrup and that’s an alternative.”According to the CDC, six in ten American adults have a chronic disease and four in ten adults have two or more. Examples of chronic diseases include heart disease, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.