Applying Precision Medicine to Healthy Living for the Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease

Healthy living medicine (HLM) is an emerging concept that recognizes the importance of: (1) Moving more and sitting less; (2) Consuming a healthy diet at the appropriate caloric load; (3) Maintaining a healthy body weight; and (4) Not smoking. Suffice to say, HLM should be practiced by all health professionals, prescribing a personalized healthy living polypill to individuals under their care while titrating the dosage for optimal adherence and therapeutic efficacy. Traditionally, HLM, particularly when practiced in the context of physical activity and diet, is commonly viewed as an all-or-none and one-size-fits-all paradigm. As an example, there has been a dichotomous perception to physical activity messaging, where achieving anything less than 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per day is not beneficial. The same holds true for the all-or-none perception of 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day; anything less is not beneficial. While these are certainly desirable targets, healthy living practices at levels below current guidelines portend significant health benefits. Precision medicine is defined as "an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person." Much of the focus in precision medicine has been directed toward genomics and only recently has the influence of environment and lifestyle been considered. This review will highlight the importance of HLM directed toward the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases in the context of precision medicine.