Leveraging Exercise and Nutrition as a "Trans-disease Intervention" to Enhance Recovery in Substance Use Disorders

About this course

Nearly 49M people worldwide have a substance use disorder (SUD). There were 111k related deaths in the U.S. in 2022. The recent ACSM Call to Action highlights strategies to mitigate issues associated with SUD. This course will explore how nutrition and exercise act as trans-disease interventions to address multiple health conditions simultaneously (e.g., obesity, SUD, chronic pain), leveraging common mechanisms to produce central and physiological benefits. These conditions are highly comorbid and share similar brain dysfunction patterns, including impaired frontal lobe activity and defective reward systems. Exercise and nutritional interventions act in these regions, improving brain activity and cognitive functions for better decision-making and reduced maladaptive behaviors. This course aims to discuss the science behind these interventions, practical strategies to augment existing recovery efforts, and highlight neuroscientific mechanisms and actionable insights behind drug (mis)use, physical (in)activity, and (un)healthy eating habits to support sustainable recovery from both research and practical perspectives.

What you will learn

• Understand how drugs, exercise, and nutrition impact the brain and cognitive functions and how they can affect recovery from substance use disorders
• Examine the most effective exercise and nutrition interventions for these patients
• Discuss the combined exercise and nutrition strategies to create comprehensive health programs that improve executive functions and life quality for patients with substance use disorders, as well as debate recommendations for researchers and practitioners

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• Recertification Booster: 15 CECsReach 15 CECs, 15% off
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• Full Renewal: 45 CECsReach 45 CECs, 25% off
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