Performance medicine

Performance Medicine is a sub-speciality of clinical and diagnostic medicine that aims to maximise human performance in terms of endurance, physical fitness, metabolic efficiency and the ability to resist, postpone or prevent disease. It is a new and innovative medical speciality that merges the goals of internal medicine, anti-ageing medicine, sports medicine and preventative health care.

The goals of performance medicine have been summarised and include the following:


 * 1) a focus on maintaining an individuals endurance capacity, strength and speed throughout adult life
 * 2) the maximisation of an individuals metabolic efficiency
 * 3) the adoption of strategies that increase an individuals resistance to disease and postpone or prevent disease where possible

Performance medicine differs fundamentally from other areas of medicine by focusing on the healthy non-injured individual that is at low risk of sub-clinical or clinical disease. This population of individuals respond poorly to the current medical paradigm.

Performance medicine physicians aim to measure physiological and biochemical performance over time and to modify exposure to environmental factors in such a way that an individuals health is optimised by operating at the "sweet spot" on their  J- curve where both performance and longevity are maximimised. (see J-curve illustration for further explanation).

Domains

 * 1) Specialty: Performance Medicine
 * 2) Diagnostic clinic: Performance Medicine Lab
 * 3) Promotion and Education
 * 4) Clinical Research

Organisations

 * Royal Australasian College of Physicians
 * American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
 * International Federation of Sports Medicine