The American Heart Association has awarded nearly $1.2 million in planning grants to 12 scientific researchers to develop clinical trial protocols examining 'food is medicine' interventions. These grants are part of the organization's decade-long Health Care by Food™ initiative, which seeks to establish food-based medical treatments as reimbursable and sustainable healthcare strategies.
The research will focus on developing protocols to test interventions like produce prescriptions and medically tailored meals for treating and preventing chronic diseases. With an estimated 90% of the United States' $4.5 trillion annual healthcare expenditure spent on diet-related chronic conditions, these studies could provide critical insights into cost-effective treatment approaches.
Kevin Volpp, scientific lead for the initiative, emphasized the importance of creating research that insurers will find compelling for potential coverage decisions. The planning grants will allow researchers one year to design detailed clinical trial protocols that can subsequently compete for larger federal or institutional funding.
The American Heart Association has already funded 23 small-scale clinical trials in this domain, with results expected before the year's end. These studies aim to understand how different populations access and benefit from food-based medical interventions, with a goal of identifying the most clinically and cost-effective approaches.
By systematically researching 'food is medicine' strategies, the initiative hopes to demonstrate how targeted nutritional interventions could revolutionize chronic disease management, potentially reducing healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes across cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity treatment.
