About half of all Americans suffer from preventable chronic diseases. Many of these diseases are related to poor nutrition and lack of physical activity — cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, and poor bone health, to name a few. In addition, the rate of obesity is skyrocketing—more than two-thirds of adults and nearly one-third of children are overweight or obese. Furthermore, medical costs associated with obesity were estimated to be $147 billion in 2008 and this number is growing exponentially.
Finally, over two-thirds of all deaths are caused by one or more of these five chronic diseases: heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes. [1]
How can these problems be solved? Instead of getting a prescription for more pills, what if you got a healthy food prescription? Certainly, this is the powerful secret to the future of healthcare.
A new study shows the cost-effectiveness of healthy food prescriptions
A ground-breaking study by Tufts University concludes that health insurance coverage to offset the cost of healthy food for Medicare and/or Medicaid participants would be highly cost-effective after five years and improve health outcomes. In particular, the study proposed 30% of the cost of eligible food such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts/seeds, seafood, and plant-based oils would be covered through Medicare and Medicaid with an electronic debit card.
Co-author of the study, Yujin Lee, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts states: “We found that encouraging people to eat healthy foods in Medicare and Medicaid – healthy food prescriptions–could be as or more cost-effective as other common interventions, such as preventative drug treatments for hypertension or high cholesterol.”
For example, with implementing healthy food prescriptions, the researchers concluded:
- 120,000 cases of diabetes would be prevented or postponed
- 3.28 million cases of cardiovascular disease would be prevented or postponed.[2]
Food is Medicine
Normally, we think of food as merely what we eat when we are hungry. But fresh, healthy, whole foods can prevent, cure and delay the onset of disease.
Dr. Mark Hyman, in his book What the Heck Should I Eat, writes:
“Food is the most powerful drug on the planet. It can improve the expression of thousands of genes, balance dozens of hormones, optimize tens of thousands of protein networks, reduce inflammation, and optimize your microbiome (gut flora) with every single bite. It can cure most chronic diseases; it works faster, better and cheaper than any drug ever discovered; and the only side effects are good ones–prevention, reversal, and even treatment of disease, not to mention vibrant optimal health.” [3]
On the other hand, unhealthy foods such as sugar, high fructose corn syrup, highly processed vegetable oils, trans fats, processed meats and baked goods incite inflammation that causes chronic disease.
Multiple Sclerosis Cured by the Healing Power of Food
After a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2000, Dr. Terry Wahls declined rapidly in spite of conventional treatments for her disease. By 2007 she was wheelchair bound. Refusing to accept her fate, she started an intensive search of medical research to find her own cure. While taking a plethora of supplements to support the brain, she found that her downward slide of the disease had slowed.
Still encouraged by this, she began to research mitochondria and their role in chronic disease. After extensive research into the nutrition of foods, she designed her own unique dietary plan for healing. In other words, she became what she calls “a modern-day hunter-gatherer,” eating only copious amounts of leafy greens, sulfur-rich vegetables, and other colorful vegetables, seaweed, wild fish, grass-fed meats and organ meats.
Surprisingly, in 2008 she was able to ride her bike for 18 miles and walk without a cane. Currently, she is a professor of medicine, clinical researcher, author, and advocate for changing the health of Americans. Consequently, Dr. Wahls stated in her TEDx talk that we are “starving ourselves” and the standard American diet is “setting the stage for chronic disease.”
Lifestyle changes including diet reverse chronic diseases
Dr. Dean Ornish and his wife Anne Ornish created a life-transforming program– the first of its kind covered by Medicare and many other insurance carriers. The program is detailed in their new book: UnDo It, How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases. To summarize, the basic lifestyle changes necessary to reverse chronic diseases including heart disease are: eat well, move more, stress less, love more.
Eat to Beat Disease
In his new book, Eat to Beat Disease, Dr. William Li presents the scientific research and evidence of how food choices boost our body’s defenses to prevent, resist and fight disease. He details five defense systems of the body and which foods activate them. However, there is no “silver bullet” — one food or group of foods that will cure a specific disease. Briefly, the overall concept is to activate the body’s own defensive mechanisms with the proper foods to heal itself.
Federal Government Support of Healthy Food Prescriptions- 2018 Farm Bill
Undoubtedly, the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill creating a Produce Prescription Program is a step forward to the feasibility of healthy food prescriptions. However, the program does not have dedicated funds and pulls money from the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (formerly the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive Program). Nevertheless, the funds for this program were nearly doubled from $135 million to $250 million. Consequently, funding for competitive grants for programs to provide “farmacies” for healthy food prescriptions to encourage healthy produce consumption is now available. [4]
Conclusion
In conclusion, ponder alarming statistics about healthcare costs in the United States:
- More than 75% of all health care costs are due to chronic conditions. [5]
- Four of the five most expensive health conditions (based on total health care spending in a given year in the United States) are chronic conditions – heart disease, cancer, mental disorders, and pulmonary conditions. [6]
- A 2007 study reported that seven chronic diseases – cancer, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart disease, pulmonary conditions, and mental illness – have a total impact on the economy of $1.3 trillion annually. By the year 2023, this number is projected to increase to $4.2 trillion in treatment costs and lost economic output.[7]
Obviously, steps must be taken to curb the rise of chronic diseases and the associated escalation of healthcare costs. Consider healthy food prescriptions as a means to encourage eating more fruits, vegetables, and other whole healthy foods to help solve the serious problem of escalating healthcare costs due to chronic diseases.
Above all, discover the powerful secret to the future of healthcare because FOOD is MEDICINE.
References
- https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/introduction/nutrition-and-health-are-closely-related/
- https://nutrition.tufts.edu/news/prescribing-healthy-food-medicaremedicaid-cost-effective-could-improve-health-outcomes
- Hyman, Mark. Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? Little, Brown and Company, 2018.
- http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/closer-look-2018-farm-bill-fini/
- https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/introduction/nutrition-and-health-are-closely-related/
- Stanton MW. The High Concentration of U.S. Health Care Expenditures. Research in Action, Issue 19. AHRQ Publication No. 06-0060 (2006)
- R. DeVol and A. Bedroussian, An Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease. Milken Institute. (2007)
