Telling people to eat healthier is one thing. Making healthy food easier to get may be just as important.
A long-term “Food Is Medicine” program that provided free weekly groceries to adults experiencing food insecurity was linked to improvements in blood pressure, body weight and BMI, according to a study published in the CDC journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
The study included 68 adults who received grocery packages through a Massachusetts community health center food pantry for an average of 2.7 years.
Each package was designed by a dietitian and included foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, canned beans, nut butter and whole grains. The packages were intended to provide enough food for three meals a day for each household member for one week.
People who received more packages tended to show greater improvements.
For every 100 weekly packages received, researchers estimated an average drop of about 3 points in diastolic blood pressure, the lower number in a blood pressure reading. Participants also lost about 6 pounds on average and saw a decline in BMI.
Among people who started the program with elevated blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, the top number, also improved.
Not every health measure changed, though.
Researchers found no significant improvement in hemoglobin A1c, a measure of average blood sugar over several months.
That matters because food is only one part of managing conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Medications, physical activity, stress and other health and social factors can also affect those outcomes.
The study also cannot prove the grocery program itself caused the improvements.
Researchers looked back at health records from people already participating in the program. There was no comparison group of similar patients who did not receive the groceries.
People who picked up groceries more regularly may also have differed in other ways. They may have been more engaged with their health care, more consistent with medications or more stable in other parts of their lives.
Still, the length of the program makes the findings interesting.
Many Food Is Medicine studies have lasted only a few weeks or months. In this program, participants received groceries for years, suggesting that improving access to healthy food over time may matter more than short-term interventions.
The study also highlights a challenge that nutrition advice can easily overlook.
It is difficult to follow advice to eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans if those foods are too expensive, hard to find or difficult to access regularly.
Rather than simply telling patients what to eat, this program provided the food directly and in enough quantity to help feed the household.
That approach is part of a broader Food Is Medicine movement that includes medically tailored meals, grocery programs and produce prescriptions connected to health care.
Research on these programs has been mixed. Some clearly improve access to nutritious food and diet quality, while changes in blood pressure, blood sugar and other health measures have been less consistent.
This study suggests that longer-term support may be worth exploring.
Larger, more rigorous studies will be needed to determine whether programs like this directly improve health and which patients benefit most.
The study was supported by the Massachusetts General Hospital Claflin Distinguished Scholar Award, The Vitamix Foundation, The Ardmore Foundation and National Institutes of Health funding for two researchers.