Michael Sagner
Michael Sagner is a French-German researcher and medical doctor with specialization in preventive medicine and sports medicine. He is also trained in nutritional medicine and is a performance nutrition specialist and physician to high-level athletes (e.g. German national league soccer). Michael Sagner is a European pioneer in preventive medicine and lifestyle medicine. While in medical school he founded two health-related start-up companies in Germany and Switzerland. He graduated from medical school in Italy and Germany and is licensed to practice medicine in all 28 European countries. Michael Sagner started the first European medical lifestyle-coaching program covered by health insurance, which received extensive media coverage.
Dr. Sagner founded the first Department for Preventive Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine at a European university medical center and medical school (Eppendorf). As the director he led an interdisciplinary team of 15 - medical doctors, nurses, exercise physiology specialists, physiotherapists and nutritionists. He was in charge of the scientific projects and PhD students as well as the clinical care of patients. At the same time he was a consulting physician for the German soccer league ‘Bundesliga’ and oversaw the transfers and health checks of the professional players. He was the Director of the department until he was elected the President of the European Society of Lifestyle Medicine in 2014.
His paper ‘Lifestyle as Medicine’ introduced the interdisciplinary concept of Lifestyle Medicine to European medical doctors and received widespread attention. He is also the co-author of the medical textbooks ‘Sports Medicine and Exercise Physiology in Internal Medicine’ (German) as well as ‘Lifestyle Medicine’ (Roessner, Egger, Sagner 2016) and is working on other textbooks with Elsevier.
In 2013 he was part of a German government delegation to South Korea to develop new concepts for healthy aging in industrialized nations. Since 2013 he has been serving as an advisor to European Union projects such as CARRE (technology for patient empowerment) and Horizon2020. He is currently collaborating with universities and medical societies in Europe, the US, Israel. He initiated the first international and unified definition of ‘Lifestyle Medicine’ (to be published Q3 in International Journal of Clinical Practice).
He is involved in establishing the first ‘International Journal of Lifestyle Medicine’ with the publisher Elsevier and a university Master degree in Lifestyle Medicine as well as several other international projects related to lifestyle-related disease research, prevention and treatment.
Abstracts this author is presenting: