de Lorgeril's Lyons Diet Heart Study [2] was one of the few clinical trials to be stopped early by the ethics committee because the treatment group were doing so much better than the control group who were following the NCEP recommended diet. The study was stopped after just over two of the planned four years.

The DASH diet which is rich in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy foods, has been shown to be an effective first-line therapy in stage 1 ISH comparable to medication. [3] The Diabetes Prevention Program [4] was a randomized multi-center lifestyle intervention trial that compared intensive lifestyle intervention to metformin and placebo in hyperglycemic patients with impaired glucose tolerance. Lifestyle intervention was significantly more effective than metformin in reducing progression to diabetes.

The Dietary Portfolio trial [5] recently conducted by Dr. David Jenkins in Toronto compared a dietary intervention in hyperlipidemic patients to the recommended low-fat diet with and without lovastatin. There were no significant differences between the portfolio diet and the low-fat diet with lovastatin.

Lifestyle medicine is the evidence-based medicine of the 21st century. Increasing numbers of diseases are being found to not only be preventable with lifestyle interventions, but many are also proving to be reversible.