Australian survey finds broad acceptability of lifestyle medicine for brain health

Australian adults broadly regarded lifestyle medicine as an acceptable approach to enhancing brain health in an online survey, but fewer participants considered its practical burdens acceptable. Among 1,019 respondents aged 18 to 90, 92.6% reported understanding the concept of brain health and 91.9% considered it important. Only 44.7%, however, felt they had insight into the status of their own brain health.

The cross-sectional study, reported in BMC Public Health, investigated how Australians perceive brain health, how acceptable they found lifestyle medicine activities and what factors they said could influence engagement. The sample was 64.01% female and had a mean age of 49.78 years, with a standard deviation of 18.23 years. Researchers divided responses among three age groups: early adulthood, ages 18–39; middle adulthood, ages 40–59; and late adulthood, over 60.

The survey drew on the seven components of the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability and included brief text responses about influences on participation. Responses were favorable on several measures of acceptability. For affective attitude, which captures how respondents feel about using lifestyle medicine to enhance brain health, 79.4% gave a positive assessment.

Ethicality, concerning alignment with personal values, was accepted by 75.1%, while intervention coherence was 89.4%, indicating that respondents generally understood how the approach was intended to work. Perceived effectiveness was also high at 86.7%. These results describe beliefs and perceptions rather than evidence that lifestyle medicine improves neurological or clinical outcomes.

Acceptability was weaker when participants considered the demands of taking part. Only 55.5% found the burden of engaging in lifestyle medicine activities acceptable, and 43.5% found the associated opportunity cost—what they would have to give up—acceptable. Self-efficacy, or respondents’ confidence in their ability to engage, was rated acceptable by 64.9%.

Age comparisons showed that early-adult respondents found lifestyle medicine activities more acceptable for affective attitude, ethicality, intervention coherence and perceived effectiveness. Older adults were more likely to regard the activities as less burdensome. Brief written responses highlighted the most common influences on engagement: lack of time because of competing priorities, the need for access to cost-effective facilities and services, and positive social influences.

These findings show what respondents said could affect participation, rather than measuring whether they subsequently adopted lifestyle changes. The survey also cannot establish that the age differences were caused by growing older, because it was a one-time assessment without longitudinal follow-up. The authors concluded that individual and public health programs intended to enhance brain health through lifestyle medicine should be tailored to the needs and perspectives of different age groups, with attention to time, resources and social support identified in the responses.

Subject of Research: Australian adults’ perceptions and age differences in the acceptability of lifestyle medicine for brain health

Article Title: Lifestyle medicine for optimising brain health: perspectives and acceptability across the lifespan

Article References: Richardson, K., Pitt, J., Hughes, S., Petukhova, R., Yücel, M., & Segrave, R. (2026). Lifestyle medicine for optimising brain health: perspectives and acceptability across the lifespan. BMC Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-026-29533-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12889-026-29533-0

Keywords: brain health, lifestyle medicine, online survey, acceptability, age differences, self-efficacy, public health, health behavior, Australia, Lifestyle, medicine, optimising