Lifespan, Healthy Span and Happy Span: Integrating Lifestyle Medicine
This year's KaReNeMeZis congress showed how modern medicine extends beyond diagnosis and pharmacotherapy. It increasingly also addresses function, quality of life and healthy ageing. Lifespan, Healthy Span, Happy Span captured one of the central messages: the aim is not simply to extend life, but to help people spend more of those years in good health, with independence and quality of life.
Lifestyle medicine in clinical practice
Lifestyle medicine talks were integrated into the wider programme on chronic disease care. An opening lecture on interaction with nature as a “prescription” for a healthy heart emphasised that health is influenced by everyday behaviour and by the environments in which people live.
Throughout the congress, nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management and social connection were repeatedly discussed as components of chronic disease care. The “Lifestyle as Medicine” lecture, together with workshops in culinary medicine, exercise, yoga, mindfulness, Nordic walking and Shinrin Yoku, showed how lifestyle medicine can be delivered through structured, evidence-informed interventions.
What stood out to us?
As a physician working in family medicine, I was particularly interested in the lecture on adherence, clinical inertia and lifestyle. It was a useful reminder that treatment success does not depend only on choosing the right therapy. The physician's ability to support a patient towards lasting behaviour change.
The part that made the strongest impression on me was “Cain and Abel at KaReNeMeZis: patient testimonies” . Instead of laboratory values and clinical studies, the focus was on patients and their experience of living with chronic disease. The contrast between two patient stories was particularly striking. One described a patient who followed recommendations, took an active role in treatment and changed daily habits. The other showed how poor adherence may contribute to disease progression and worse outcomes. The “Cain and Abel” title symbolically presented two very different paths a person with chronic disease may take .
The session was a reminder that every decision about medication, eating patterns or physical activity is made by a person with their own fears, beliefs and circumstances.
Ines Prskalo, MD, CROLMA member
As I am still early in my medical career, I found the Hypertension Communication School particularly useful. Working with a simulated patient, we practised approaches to communication with people with different personalities. These skills are a useful starting point for motivational interviewing and conversations about lifestyle change. As artificial intelligence becomes more common in medicine, I think the relationship and conversation between clinician and patient may become even more important.
Another part I particularly enjoyed was the exercise workshop. We changed between lectures and managed to fit in a real group training session . The mindfulness and cooking workshops also fitted naturally between lectures. I think formats like these are a good way to show what lifestyle medicine can look like in practice rather than only talking about it.
Matilda Sabljak, MD, CROLMA member
Overall, the congress was a well-designed interdisciplinary meeting linking cardiology, nephrology, public health, psychology, nutrition and lifestyle medicine. A particular strength was the combination of scientific lectures with practical workshops, giving participants tools they could consider using in everyday work with patients.
The congress also reinforced the idea that the future of chronic disease care does not depend on new medicines alone. It also involves integrating lifestyle medicine, personalised care and building a strong therapeutic partnership with the patient . These elements are closely related to the broader goal promoted by the congress.
The aim is not only a longer life, or lifespan, but also more years lived in good health, or healthspan and a life with quality and satisfaction, or happy span. |
Thank you to the organisers. See you next year.
