Heart of the Rockies Chamber of Commerce recently welcomed Colorado Center for Lifestyle Medicine to its membership with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Lifestyle medicine is a medical specialty that uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to treat chronic conditions including, but not limited to, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Owner Bronwynn Radcliffe is a family nurse practitioner and attended the Medical College of Virginia for her education. Originally from Richmond, Virginia, she moved west in 2011, living five months on a Navajo reservation in Arizona before moving to Durango for 10 years. Colorado Center for Lifestyle Medicine opened Sept. 22.
CCLM does a deep dive into their patients’ illnesses and concerns … what’s going on with you, when it started, how to go about correcting it,” Radcliffe said.
The practice of lifestyle medicine also involves the six pillars of a whole-food, plant-predominant eating pattern, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances and positive social connections.
Radcliffe said she was inspired to come into this practice because “I want to practice using all of my knowledge.” Radcliffe studied traditional Western medicine (pharmaceuticals), functional medicine, which involves finding the root cause through testing and patient history, as well as mind-body medicine, or how the psyche connects with the body and how one’s thoughts manifest physically. “When you know them, you can’t not use them,” she said.
Radcliffe said an aspect she likes best is being in charge of her practice. “I like that I can spend more time with patients.”