New course in Phuket: How to live longer and healthier!

New course in Phuket: How to live longer and healthier!

The Ministry of Health and Vachira Phuket Hospital today launched the first LIFE - Science of Longevity course in Thailand. The goal of this innovative program is to develop proactive health leaders who will gain in-depth knowledge of lifestyle medicine and holistic health care. This step is particularly important to meet the challenges of an aging society and to reduce non-communicable diseases, they report Hfocus.

The initiative, developed by experts from various disciplines, covers areas such as lifestyle medicine, psychology, sports medicine and nutrition. Through intensive training, course participants will learn how to effectively implement wellness and vitality strategies. The planned content includes, among other things, nutritional recommendations, an understanding of the microbiome, the importance of exercise, stress management and many other lifestyle factors that can significantly contribute to health promotion.

Why preventive measures are crucial

Dr. Weerasak Lothongkam, director of Vachira Phuket Hospital, highlights that early intervention in patients' lifestyles is crucial to prevent serious diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. The importance of a healthy lifestyle is increasingly recognized worldwide. For example, according to the World Health Organization, 80% of heart diseases and types of diabetes could be prevented with appropriate lifestyle interventions. Current events in the USA underline this: life expectancy there fell from 78.8 years to 77.0 years between 2019 and 2020 alone, which clearly illustrates the need for preventive health measures, as Stanford University reports lifestylemedicine.stanford.edu.

With the “LIFE” course, the initiators want to create a group of “change leaders” who can apply the principles of lifestyle medicine in different contexts. Particularly targeted are healthcare professionals, healthcare executives, wellness providers and community leaders.

Details about the course

The course will take place every Friday over a period of three months, from January 9 to March 27, 2026, and will provide comprehensive training to promote health literacy among the population. Registrations are open until December 30, 2025 and have a fee of 45,000 baht, which includes health screenings and hands-on activities. The ALIVE wellness center at Vachira Phuket Hospital is available for further information.

The need for such initiatives is becoming increasingly urgent due to global healthcare challenges. Barbara Bitzer from the German Alliance for Noncommunicable Diseases (DANK), for example, is calling on the federal government in Germany to take concrete steps to promote healthy eating and exercise. Their criticism of the coalition agreement makes it clear that without appropriate measures, diseases such as diabetes and obesity are difficult to combat, which is also relevant for Thailand, where the political landscape is also required to optimize preventive measures awmf.org.

In conclusion, the new LIFE course is not only an important educational initiative, but also a crucial response to global trends in health challenges. This makes the chances of a longer, healthier life tangible.