“Exercise as Medicine” for the Prevention and Management of Chronic Diseases

NUT 218 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Exercise is a potent non-pharmacologic lifestyle modality that positively alters chronic disease risk and management of chronic disease throughout the lifespan, and as such the phrase “Exercise as Medicine” is commonly used to underscore the importance of this modality in everyday life. Epidemiologic research supports the use of physical activity in support of exercise as medicine to address disease risk and management which has been further reinforced with efficacy data from clinical exercise trials. The breadth of this work lends to challenges in developing and implementing rigorously prescribed exercise across individuals and populations. This course will help students develop a framework for assessing and designing exercise strategies to reduce the burden of disease. Exercise approaches to disease prevention and management will focus on exercise prescription parameters, delivery settings, health outcomes, and health disparities. The lectures and readings will examine different issues around effectiveness, feasibility, and sustainability, including individual health status, barriers to exercise participation, and exercise treatment modalities. We will emphasize the timing of disease prevention and management in the context of the efficacy of exercise, at times coupled with dietary modifications, and identify knowledge gaps that warrant high risk, high reward, timely investigations culminating in a final project. Students will have homework assignments to collect and apply new knowledge within exercise medicine, which will be used to develop an exercise efficacy intervention targeting a biologic endpoint as a final project.