A Milestone: 2024 Marks the 20th Anniversary of the Founding of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine

More than a medical professional association, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) represents a galvanized force for change, a magnet for purpose-, passion-driven medical professionals who want to help lead and be part of the change they know is desperately needed to transform health and redefine healthcare. Since its inception in 2004, ACLM has been a transformation catalyst—a disruptor of the status quo disease and disability care system.

No other medical professional association has advocated that the field it represents become healthcare’s foundation; yet, this is express in ACLM’s vision statement: A nation and world wherein lifestyle medicine is the foundation of health and all healthcare.

While it’s imperative that lifestyle medicine be integrated as the first treatment approach into primary care, ACLM’s leaders are a microcosm of how lifestyle medicine’s focus on treating the root cause of disease is needed in ALL fields of medicine. The composition of ACLM’s current and immediate-past Boards of Directors reflects this: 2 cardiologists, an endocrinologist, an oncologist, an OBGyn, a pediatrician, a physiatrist, a psychiatrist, internal medicine primary care physicians, family medicine docs, a physician associate, a nurse practitioner, a PhD in behavioral health, and an RD with a PhD in nutrition. Moreover, ACLM’s 11,000 members are representative of the interdisciplinary clinical practice team that enables lifestyle medicine’s scalability, supporting the behavior change that’s at the heart of the field.

It was the foresighted leaders 20 years ago who saw the need, cast a vision, and boldly took action to infuse health back into healthcare. Passion and dedication on the part of so many have been required over the past two decades to catapult ACLM and the field of lifestyle medicine to where they are today, including induction in June 2024 into the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates.

We asked Founding President John Kelly, MD, FACLM, DipABLM, Intensivist, recognized in 2015 as ACLM’s inaugural Trailblazer Award recipient, to reflect on the impetus for establishing ACLM:

“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 Lifetime Achievement and Trailblazer Awards debuted in 2015, with ACLM unveiling other awards over the years, including the President’s Award, Ancel Keys Award and the Donald A. Pegg Student Leadership Award. Special Recognition Awards were established in 2022.

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.

ACLM’s bold, courageous, visionary presidents deserve high praise for their leadership and dedication. They and their board colleagues have been the driving force throughout the past two decades:

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)

For many years, ACLM remained a volunteer, physician-led organization, with founding member Dr Marc Braman stepping in from 2009-2012 as ACLM’s first executive director. Susan Benigas accepted the reins as executive director 10 years ago, in March 2014, with this year marking her 10-year ACLM anniversary. During her tenure, the College has grown from one part-time event coordinator to a staff of 40 spread across 22 states, and a membership of 380 in the spring of 2014 to what is now 11,000 strong and growing.

In 2019, in celebration of ACLM’s 15^th anniversary, the article, American College of Lifestyle Medicine: Vision, Tenacity, Transformation, appeared in AJLM chronicling the College’s history and seminal accomplishments, including the 2010 publication in JAMA of Physician Competencies for Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine and the establishment in 2016 of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine (ABLM) and, in 2017, the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine (IBLM).

Since the inaugural ABLM and IBLM exams in 2017, 6688 physicians and other health professionals, representing 75 countries, have earned certification in lifestyle medicine. This number includes 3075 physicians and 1263 other health professionals in the United States—with U.S.- and Canadian-certified clinicians featured in ACLM’s LMPros.org—a patient-facing, searchable directory.

It’s these nearly 7000 physicians and medical professionals—and others who will be certified in lifestyle medicine this year—who, starting in 2025, will have the exclusive opportunity to vie for certification as a Blue Zones Physician or Blue Zones Healthcare Professional, an opportunity created through a partnership announced earlier this year between ACLM and Blue Zones, LLC. Blue Zones recognized the vital need to marry lifestyle IN medicine with lifestyle AS medicine, with the clinicians already certified in lifestyle medicine—those having demonstrated clinical proficiency—being uniquely equipped to support Blue Zones’ community health transformation goal: to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

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 Student/Trainees are a thriving segment of ACLM’s membership, representing medicine’s future leaders:

Clinical practice guidelines for chronic disease treatment and prevention frequently list lifestyle intervention as part of the standard of care. Even so, the vast majority of physicians and healthcare professionals have not received this training as part of their formal medical education. Filling the gaping void of lifestyle medicine in medical education, across the medical education continuum, is one of ACLM’s highest priorities. In 2022, ACLM became an AMA Ed Hub content provider. And, throughout the course of the past five years, ACLM’s CME/CE offering rollouts have included:

ACLM made a major stride in advancing lifestyle medicine continuing medical education (CME) when showcased by the White House in late 2022 for its $24.1 M commitment in support of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. This pledge represented the equivalent of 100,000 complimentary registrations for ACLM’s $220, 5.5-hour CME/CE-accredited Lifestyle Medicine and Food as Medicine Essentials online course. Coupled with this was ACLM and ABLM’s commitment to provide a 50% scholarship for lifestyle medicine training and the opportunity for certification for one primary care provider (PCP) in each of our nation’s ∼1400 federally qualified health centers (FQHC’s) as means of educating and equipping clinicians on the front lines of delivering care to our most under-served populations.

To date, more than 40,000 clinicians have registered for the Essentials course, with the 5.5 CME hours comprised of ACLM’s one-hour Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine, coupled with the first two modules of the FAM course. In 2023, ACLM increased its initial commitment to 200,000 complimentary course registrations and extended the deadline to September 2025.

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.

ACLM’s Practice Advancement Department, launched in January 2024, began in 2022 as a focus area supported by ACLM’s Clinical Practice and Quality Committee (CPQC). Accomplishments include:

ACLM’s Health Systems Council (HSC) was established in 2022 as a collaborative learning community that has quickly grown to 108 integrated health systems across the U.S., with a keen focus to build a repository of lifestyle medicine implementation models including video, PDF and research abstract resources showcasing successful integration across a variety of settings and practices. These include an array of specialized lifestyle medicine implementation briefs, toolkits, and practice resources spanning integration within various specialties, payment, and reimbursement modalities.

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’s Research Department, established in 2020 along with ACLM’s Research Committee. The department will now be showcased as the Lifestyle Medicine Research Institute, recognizing Blue Zones as the exclusive founding partner.

ACLM Research Department accomplishments include:

A full list of organization-sponsored publications are featured on ACLM’s website, including:

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.

The past five years included a global pandemic: COVID-19 shone a bright light on the urgent need to address the underlying conditions that exacerbated the virus’ most harmful effects and the disproportionate impact on our underserved communities. These underlying conditions, by and large, were lifestyle-related chronic conditions, serving to heighten awareness about and interest in ACLM and the field of lifestyle medicine, which includes prescribing food as medicine.

Food “in, as, is” medicine is now in vogue, with ACLM having been advocating for intensive therapeutic lifestyle change (ITLC), including using food as medicine, since its inception. While much of the food is medicine (FIM) discussion is now focused on food insecurity and the need to address its with more healthful calories, rather than just any calories, lifestyle medicine’s food as medicine (FAM) Rx is highly prescriptive, with a focus on ITLC intervention that evidence shows as efficacious in treating already existing disease, with the goal of health restoration. All pillars of lifestyle medicine—a whole food, plant-predominant eating pattern, regular physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, positive social connection, and the avoidance of risky substances—work synergistically to support sustainable behavior change.

Amplified acknowledgment of the importance of lifestyle medicine’s root cause treatment approach—resulting from COVID-19, combined with ACLM’s advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill—has led to a growing number of significant media placements, including the featured March 2020 Newsweek article titled “For Extra Protection Against COVID’s Worst Effects, Look to Lifestyle Medicine.” Other high-visibility outlets ACLM has appeared in are Wall Street Journal, New York Tines, Becker’s Hospital Review, Consumer Affairs, Medscape, and Healio. Made possible by the generous support of the Ardmore Institute of Health, ACLM was also pleased to publish in 2022 a 22-article supplement in the Journal of Family Practice: A Family Physician’s Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine.

ACLM had begun bipartisan advocacy efforts in support of its members in 2019 by introducing the College and the field it represents to key Members of Congress and leaders in regulatory agencies such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). COVID-19 served as a wake-up call: Receptivity to our message began to resonate unlike ever before, as the vulnerability of our population health had been laid bare—the result of epidemic levels of chronic disease.

Since the 2022 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, ACLM has had “a seat at the table” at major convenings and events on food is medicine and medical education, and we have introduced Congressional members and staff to our members’ work. Our priority areas of focus continue to be: lifestyle medicine in medical education; reimbursement and quality measures; health equity as it relates to lifestyle-related chronic disease health disparities; and military health for recruits and active-duty personnel.

ACLM represents the future of a transformed and sustainable system of healthcare delivery. Achieving the Quintuple Aim is ONLY possible with a lifestyle medicine-first approach. Lifestyle medicine delivers superior patient outcomes and dramatically improved levels of both patient and clinician satisfaction, while reining in healthcare costs. It also directly addresses lifestyle-related chronic disease health disparities. Lifestyle medicine also addresses a sixth aim of global sustainability, with science showing the inextricable connectedness of our lifestyle behaviors on both human and planetary health.

ACLM’s Global Sustainability Committee, over the past two years, has published the following about the intersection of human and planetary heath:

Lifestyle medicine-trained clinicians are dedicated to “treating the cause”—striving to identify and eradicate the root cause of disease, with a goal of medication de-escalation. Lifestyle medicine clinicians get to the heart of the matter by listening to patients, using motivational interviewing, and co-creating inspiring SMART goals that empower people to reach their vision for themselves and fulfill their purpose. The clinical outcome goal of lifestyle medicine treatment is disease remission and reversal, resulting in health restoration.

There’s a call today in healthcare to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care—care that’s shifting from fee-for-service to value-based care (VBC). Optimization of VBC is only possible with a lifestyle medicine-first approach; recognizing, too, that lifestyle medicine clinical care is at the heart of whole-person health, with behavior change as the foundation.

Addressing the epidemic of chronic disease, now afflicting adults and teens alike, is one of the most urgent issues of our time. Lifestyle medicine delivers the healing and restoration our nation and world, including our planet, so desperately need. Moreover, lifestyle medicine reignites the passion for why most physicians and medical professionals went into medicine: to become true healers.

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, ACLM’s mission-advance to disrupt the status quo and usher in a sustainable system of healthcare delivery is possible only through philanthropic investment on the part of many. Special thanks to the Ardmore Institute of Health for its on-going support and to those listed on ACLM’s Wall of Champions—individuals and organizations who partner with ACLM on an annual basis to bring to ALL people the hope, healing and health that lifestyle medicine enables.

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.”

In honor of ACLM’s 20^th 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.