Changing your life step by step.

Small steps towards a big change

– It is by reflecting on both scientific facts and the major issues in life while also taking small health-promoting steps every day that we can effect real change. That is the opinion of Anders Rosengren, who started the study, Livsstilsverktyget (The Lifestyle Tool).

The tool is free, accessible to all and developed in the same meticulous way as in production of pharmaceuticals. Moreover, there is now the book Hela livet for those who would like to immerse themselves further.

The Lifestyle Tool is based on a research project that Anders Rosengren, doctor and Professor of Molecular Medicine, started three years ago. 370 patients with type 2 diabetes had the opportunity to systematically reflect on their own circumstances while receiving scientific facts. Among other things, patients would think about what was so important in life that they were prepared to make a change and start exercising, for example.

– When we weighed the patients, checked their blood pressure, as well as their blood sugar and cholesterol levels, we were surprised by how good they were. However, the most interesting result came a little later, when we noticed that these effects not only remained but even improved over time. This is not usually the case, on the contrary, lifestyle changes seldom last very long.

Anders Rosengren explains the success by saying that the Lifestyle Tool provides patients with a framework in which they can organise their way of acting and thinking. – The user is helped to dive deeper into various problems to really investigate what they are due to: Why can I not change? Well, because I’m stressed. Why am I stressed? Well, because I feel inadequate. But why? Instead of being prescribed, you are stimulated and can take a step back and think. This deeper approach causes the patient to get to the bottom of themselves, which is a prerequisite for being able to take those important everyday steps that lead to real change.

The fact that the method affects blood sugar levels, blood pressure and cholesterol is of course good. But Anders Rosengren is really critical of all the measuring that is constantly going on in the healthcare sector. – As a doctor and researcher, I obviously devote myself to measuring different things, which of course is necessary. But all the measuring also creates a false notion that a person’s well-being can be determined with the help of numbers, and that the boundary between healthy and sick is clear and distinct. There is a risk that we end up with a kind of pseudo-accuracy where we constantly see connections, even those that do not exist.

The success with the diabe-

The user is helped to dive deeper into various problems to really investigate what they are due to.

ANDERS ROSENGREN

Anders Rosengren wants us to, step by step, get a better health

tes patients led the research team to further improve the tool. In addition, it has now been opened up to a wider population in a preventive study. The interest is great and new users are added all the time, Anders Rosengren explains. – At the same time, our research is entering a second phase. It means that all the people who sign up for the Lifestyle Tool will be compared to a control group, who will not have access to the tool. After three years, an evaluation will be made of how many have developed type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease in each group to examine the extent to which the tool can prevent disease. It will thus be a research study that anyone in all of Sweden can take part in.

In parallel with the study, constant development of the tool is also taking place. Soon, for example, there will be a section on alcohol. – Developing new questions and investigations requires a lot of work, often in interdisciplinary collaborations that are primarily handled by our study coordinator and one of our postdocs. But what is so exciting about an online tool is that once the preparatory work is done, most things take care of themselves. Therefore, in principle, as many people as possible can use the Lifestyle Tool, for the benefit of research, but of course primarily for their own benefit.

Facts

Anders Rosengren, doctor and Professor of Molecular Medicine, has worked with colleagues to develope Livsstilsverktyget. se, which is free and accessible to everyone, within the framework of a preventive study. An in-depth presentation of the tool can be found in Anders Rosengren’s book Hela livet (Throughout Life), published by Norstedts.

Text: Eva Lundgren Photo: Johan Wingborg