Tailoring Lifestyle Medicine in Ethiopia: A Narrative Review on Adapting the Nutritional Pillar to the Ethiopian Context

Background: Lifestyle medicine (LM) is defined as the discipline of studying how daily habits and practices impact both the prevention and treatment of disease, often in conjunction with pharmaceutical or surgical therapy, to provide an important adjunct to overall health. The pillars of LM comprise nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management, avoidance of harmful substances and social connections. Materials and Methods: We conducted a narrative review of the existing literature by searching for literature in PubMed and google scholar. Snowballing of references was also used to identify relevant articles from the articles that came out of the search. We included other studies evaluating Ethiopian dietary habits, staple diets, and EOTC or Islamic (Ramadan) fasting practices. Result: Ethiopian staples like teff injera exhibit low glycemic profiles, aligning with traditional practices that protect against Western-diet-induced metabolic and inflammatory risks. Adherence to Orthodox Christian and Islamic (Ramadan) fasting practices significantly improves mainly cardiometabolic markers, lowering blood pressure, optimizing lipid profiles and injury markers. In addition, these culturally and religious integrated non-pharmacological interventions consistently lower anthropometric measurements, weight, and long-term chronic disease risk profiles. Conclusions: Aligning the nutritional pillar of lifestyle medicine with Ethiopia’s traditional cuisine and religious fasting cycles offers clear health benefits.