By: Jennifer Campolong, MSN, CRNP, Lifestyle Educator
For the last 11 years, I have practiced as a Primary Care Certified Registered Nurse practitioner (CRNP) in Clearfield County. In primary care, you see and hear it all.
You get to know your patients on a personal level and see how their diagnoses affect their overall health and their relationships with others. One common theme that always seems to present itself was the patients feeling or acting like they had no control over how healthy or ill they were. I would hear a lot of “it’s in my genes,” “my mom had the same problem” or “everyone on my dad’s side died from this.”
I feel like the majority of people do not understand the monumental influence their own behaviors have on their symptoms or health conditions. In 2008 I attended the “Food as Medicine” Conference in Baltimore, MD. It was a group of elite medical professionals, such as Dr. Mark Hyman, MD, Dr. James Gordon, MD and Kathie Swift, MS, RD, among others, educating enthusiastic healthcare professionals on how food and lifestyle measures can have a huge impact on patients’ lives. Such measures can result in a reduction in the community’s need for medications and/or other expensive treatments. The information was always supported with the appropriate scientific literature in order to maintain the conference’s credibility in the medical community. One area that was new to me was the field “Epigenetics.”
Epigenetics is an area of study where the environmental and lifestyle influences have the ability to turning on and off genes. Since then the topic of Epigenetics has come up several times in other lifestyle, integrative education programs. So in other words, what YOU do in terms of eating, stress management, exercise, or smoking has the ability to turn on or off your genes.
This is amazing!!!! You don’t have to just accept that you will develop diabetes because your mom did, or have your first heart attack in your 50’s like everyone on your dad’s side of the family. You can change your habits and behaviors while regaining your health.
I do believe in drugs, when absolutely necessary, and the modern medical system. However, I feel that providers and patients alike are not putting enough emphasis on the influence patients can have on their own health status. For example, providers may need to educate a patient complaining of irritability, fatigue, and excessive hunger that their symptoms could be coming from their diet of excessive breads, pasta’s, and sweet treats. Or if a patient reports headaches, neck pain, and anxiety, the provider may need to educate the patient on the benefits of exercise or yoga for that group of symptoms. The practitioner may still pursue the cause of the presenting symptoms though appropriate lab testing or other questioning if they feel it is necessary. However, lifestyle factors and food choices should be discussed first and foremost at any visit as having the potential to relate to the complaint of the patient. Yes, this type of patient education takes more time and results in more questions than writing out a prescription. Patients will learn better from the one-on-one time with the provider in reviewing the details of their healthier life style habits then just leaving the education to the patient to seek out on their own. But if providers don’t feel that lifestyle medicine is important and effective then neither will their patients.
If you are looking for help in finding healthier lifestyle measures that can help you turn your life around then please feel free to review my Web site and call to schedule your first visit today. Your health is in your hands…..
The Women’s Health Task Force is a small group volunteering their time to educate women and families on important health issues. If you have an interest in health, work in a caring profession, or just want to volunteer with other sincere women, consider attending our monthly planning meetings. These meetings are held the first Thursday of each month beginning at noon. All interested persons are encouraged to attend. Additional information on the Women’s Health Task Force is available by calling Penn State Extension at 814-765-7878. Penn State is committed to affirmative action, equal opportunity and the diversity of its workforce.