What Brussels instructed us about life-style drugs in Europe

Reflections on
European Lifestyle Medicine Organization (ELMO)
2026, the seventh European Lifestyle Medicine Congress, 10–12 September 2026

The seventh European Lifestyle Medicine Congress closed on Saturday afternoon on the twenty seventh flooring of The Hotel Brussels. I sat on the Scientific Committee as coordinator, working with

Associate Professor Dr. Robert Kelly

,

Andrée Rochfort

and Prof

Doina Todea

to form the programme, and I chaired the opening spherical desk on vitamin. This is my try to put in writing down what the three days added as much as earlier than the element fades.

The quick model: the proof base is not the issue. What Europe lacks is the infrastructure to place it into care pathways, and a lot of the helpful conversations in Brussels have been about that hole somewhat than about whether or not life-style interventions work.

Dr Ioan Hanes, who coordinated the congress for
Belgian Lifestyle Medicine Organization
and ELMO, intentionally widened the programme past the classical pillars. Alongside vitamin, exercise, sleep and psychological well being, we had full classes on planetary well being, sexual and hormonal well being, synthetic intelligence and narrative drugs. That alternative paid off. The classes that stretched the definition of life-style drugs have been those folks have been nonetheless discussing on the Friday dinner.

I opened Friday with the vitamin session, alongside

Victoria Pena Acuna, RD, CHC

from Belgium and

Zuzanna Zielińska

from the Netherlands.

Victoria’s speak requested what sits beneath “eat Mediterranean”. The dietary sample has the very best proof we have now, however a sample shouldn’t be a medical framework. She set out how one can construct one {that a} clinician can apply to a person affected person somewhat than a inhabitants. Zuzanna took meals as drugs from precept into follow, with the sort of concrete examples that survive contact with a ten-minute session.

My personal contribution was Surgical Fuel: dietary prehabilitation within the perioperative pathway. The argument is one I’ve been making for some years via PeriopLM™. A affected person ready for main surgical procedure has a window of a number of weeks through which their metabolic reserve will be constructed up or run down, and in most well being techniques no one owns that window. Anaesthetists see the affected person on the finish of it. Surgeons see the illness. Dietitians, the place they exist within the pathway, are normally introduced in after the operation somewhat than earlier than. Nutritional prehabilitation is the deliberate use of these weeks, and the proof on size of keep, problems and practical restoration is powerful sufficient that the query is not whether or not to do it however who does it and the way it’s paid for.The questions from the room have been sharper than at most surgical conferences I attend. Several got here from major care clinicians asking how they might begin this earlier than the referral letter is even written, which is strictly the best query.

Prof Maria Giulia Marini gave the narrative drugs keynote and in addition ran it as a workshop, which is the best solution to train it. Her central level was easy and uncomfortable: a affected person’s account of their very own life is medical information, and life-style interventions fail most frequently once we design them across the illness and never across the story the affected person is already dwelling. Anyone who has watched a well-constructed care plan collapse on contact with a affected person’s precise week will recognise this.

Lucien Engelen

gave the AI keynote. His place, as I heard it, was that the know-how is the straightforward half. The arduous half is redesigning care in order that it may possibly take up what the know-how makes doable. Health techniques that bolt AI onto present workflows will get marginal positive factors. Systems that rethink the workflow will get one thing else. As somebody who holds a Harvard certification in AI in healthcare and spends a great deal of time excited about how AI suits into preventive care, I discovered myself agreeing with nearly all of it and worrying about how few techniques are prepared for the second possibility.

Associate Professor Dr. Robert Kelly

‘s cardiovascular session paired coverage with behaviour. Prof

Klaudia Vivien Nagy MD, PhD, MSc, FESC

and Sophie Millar spoke to the European image and why partnerships between medical our bodies and coverage organisations matter for prevention at scale. Dora Urge and Dominika Blaga offered on preserving cardiac rehabilitation sufferers energetic lengthy after the formal programme ends, which is the a part of rehab that almost all providers do worst.

The intimacy spherical desk, chaired by Dr

Ioan Hanes MD

himself, lined territory most medical conferences keep away from. Dr

Milli Raizada

on PMOS as a metabolic situation somewhat than a weight drawback. Dr Karoline Frey on treating dysmenorrhoea with out defaulting to the tablet. Dr Els Pastijn on bodily exercise via the menopause transition. Dr Andrew Basaly on minority stress contained in the medical occupation, a topic that belongs in any severe dialog about clinician wellbeing.

Planetary well being had its personal session on Friday night.

Eleni Prifti, PhD

on pesticide publicity,

Philippe Weissenberg Anaboli

on how meals selections form agrifood techniques and antimicrobial resistance, and

Giorgos K. Sakkas PhD

on the gut-kidney-brain axis beneath environmental and life-style stress. Prof Sakkas’s speak is the one I might be studying up on.

Christina Karatzaferi, PhD

‘s medical follow session moved throughout oral well being as a pillar of wholesome ageing (Dr Sahar Haroon), life-style oncology from prevention via to supportive care, sleep in most cancers care (Dr Eric Gershman), and a nationwide NCD prevention programme on Curaçao (Dr

Betzabel Cajiao Garcia

)

The group session requested the toughest query of the congress. Dr

László Babai

needed to know whether or not the Ottawa Charter, now nearly forty years outdated, nonetheless serves because the framework for creating well being or whether or not we want a brand new one. Dr Rochfort made the case for supporting self-management locally somewhat than within the clinic. Dr Angel Gonzalez De La Fuente and Dr Sara Ares-Blanco confirmed how the OECD PaRIS survey information can be utilized to drive patient-centred behaviour change in major care.

Prof

Michel POULAIN

, co-founder of the Blue Zones idea, closed the longevity session by naming Martinique as the most recent Blue Zone. Prof

Marcelo Fiszman MD, PhD, FACMI , DipIBLM

‘s speak on semantic interoperability for computable life-style drugs deserves a wider viewers than a Saturday afternoon slot.

The workshop observe on the twenty sixth flooring was the place the congress earned its “Practice” subtitle. Small teams, licensed instructors, and classes on the talents clinicians want on Monday morning: motivational interviewing, train prescription, sleep administration, culinary drugs, gastric well being and an AI fundamentals session for individuals who wish to perceive the instruments earlier than the instruments attain their clinics.

First, the sector has grown up. Nobody in Brussels was arguing for life-style drugs. They have been arguing about how one can ship it.

Second, the surgical pathway stays one of many largest untapped alternatives in preventive care. A affected person going through an operation is, briefly, essentially the most motivated affected person within the well being system. Prehabilitation is how we use that.

Third, Europe wants implementation infrastructure greater than it wants extra proof: coaching, pathways, reimbursement, and the information requirements Prof Fiszman was describing. That is the place my very own work via Lifestyle Medicine Academy, the WHO Collaborating Centre at Imperial and PeriopLM™ sits, and Brussels confirmed it’s the proper place to be.

Thank you to Dr Ioan Hanes and the BELMO crew, to

Anne Funk

for brilliantly internet hosting the talks with such care, to my fellow Scientific Committee members, and to Victoria and Zuzanna for a powerful opening session.

Prof Dr Sunil Kumar Lifestyle Medicine Lead, WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training, Imperial College London Founding Director, Lifestyle Medicine Academy UK & India