TY - JOUR
T1 - Food Is Medicine
T2 - A Presidential Advisory from the American Heart Association
AU - Volpp, Kevin G.
AU - Berkowitz, Seth A.
AU - Sharma, Shreela V.
AU - Anderson, Cheryl A.M.
AU - Brewer, Laprincess C.
AU - Elkind, Mitchell S.V.
AU - Gardner, Christopher D.
AU - Gervis, Julie E.
AU - Harrington, Robert A.
AU - Herrero, Mario
AU - Lichtenstein, Alice H.
AU - McClellan, Mark
AU - Muse, Jen
AU - Roberto, Christina A.
AU - Zachariah, Justin P.V.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023/10/31
Y1 - 2023/10/31
N2 - Unhealthy diets are a major impediment to achieving a healthier population in the United States. Although there is a relatively clear sense of what constitutes a healthy diet, most of the US population does not eat healthy food at rates consistent with the recommended clinical guidelines. An abundance of barriers, including food and nutrition insecurity, how food is marketed and advertised, access to and affordability of healthy foods, and behavioral challenges such as a focus on immediate versus delayed gratification, stand in the way of healthier dietary patterns for many Americans. Food Is Medicine may be defined as the provision of healthy food resources to prevent, manage, or treat specific clinical conditions in coordination with the health care sector. Although the field has promise, relatively few studies have been conducted with designs that provide strong evidence of associations between Food Is Medicine interventions and health outcomes or health costs. Much work needs to be done to create a stronger body of evidence that convincingly demonstrates the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different types of Food Is Medicine interventions. An estimated 90% of the $4.3 trillion annual cost of health care in the United States is spent on medical care for chronic disease. For many of these diseases, diet is a major risk factor, so even modest improvements in diet could have a significant impact. This presidential advisory offers an overview of the state of the field of Food Is Medicine and a road map for a new research initiative that strategically approaches the outstanding questions in the field while prioritizing a human-centered design approach to achieve high rates of patient engagement and sustained behavior change. This will ideally happen in the context of broader efforts to use a health equity-centered approach to enhance the ways in which our food system and related policies support improvements in health.
AB - Unhealthy diets are a major impediment to achieving a healthier population in the United States. Although there is a relatively clear sense of what constitutes a healthy diet, most of the US population does not eat healthy food at rates consistent with the recommended clinical guidelines. An abundance of barriers, including food and nutrition insecurity, how food is marketed and advertised, access to and affordability of healthy foods, and behavioral challenges such as a focus on immediate versus delayed gratification, stand in the way of healthier dietary patterns for many Americans. Food Is Medicine may be defined as the provision of healthy food resources to prevent, manage, or treat specific clinical conditions in coordination with the health care sector. Although the field has promise, relatively few studies have been conducted with designs that provide strong evidence of associations between Food Is Medicine interventions and health outcomes or health costs. Much work needs to be done to create a stronger body of evidence that convincingly demonstrates the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different types of Food Is Medicine interventions. An estimated 90% of the $4.3 trillion annual cost of health care in the United States is spent on medical care for chronic disease. For many of these diseases, diet is a major risk factor, so even modest improvements in diet could have a significant impact. This presidential advisory offers an overview of the state of the field of Food Is Medicine and a road map for a new research initiative that strategically approaches the outstanding questions in the field while prioritizing a human-centered design approach to achieve high rates of patient engagement and sustained behavior change. This will ideally happen in the context of broader efforts to use a health equity-centered approach to enhance the ways in which our food system and related policies support improvements in health.
KW - AHA Scientific Statements
KW - chronic disease
KW - diet, healthy
KW - food
KW - food supply
KW - health care costs
KW - risk factors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85175569451&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85175569451&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001182
DO - 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001182
M3 - Review article
C2 - 37767686
AN - SCOPUS:85175569451
SN - 0009-7322
VL - 148
SP - 1417
EP - 1439
JO - Circulation
JF - Circulation
IS - 18
ER -