Healthy food prescriptions written for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries might lower the risk of costly chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and at the same time lower the costs of care, a new study suggests.
The prescriptions would even come with a 30 percent discount on foods, including fruits and vegetables
Using computer models, researchers calculated that healthy food prescriptions could prevent as many as 3.28 million cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, and save as much as $100.2 billion in health care costs, according to the study published March 19 in PLoS Medicine.
People included in the simulations were between 35 and 80 years old and were enrolled in Medicare and/or Medicaid.
... researchers used data from the three most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES 2009-2014), as well as from published sources and meta-analyses which included demographic information, dietary intakes, policy effects, diet-disease effects, policy costs and healthcare costs.
… assumptions [included] an estimate of the impact of a 30 percent discount on patient shopping habits.
When the researchers ran their model with a prescription for fruits and vegetables, [it] estimated that 1.93 million cardiovascular events would be prevented and $39.7 billion would be saved.
When they ran it with the broader prescription for healthy foods, [it] estimated that 3.28 million cardiovascular events and 120,000 diabetes cases would be avoided and $100.2 billion would be saved [about the same cost-effectiveness as drug treatments for high cholesterol or high blood pressure," Lee said].
"Our findings support the implementation and evaluation of healthy food prescriptions . . . to improve the diet and health of Americans," said researcher Yujin Lee, a postdoctoral fellow at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston….