If doctors started telling people to eat fruits and vegetables like they were giving out prescriptions, could it make a big difference in people’s health? That’s the idea behind some programs in the U.S. They deliver free produce to people, hoping that a healthy diet alone can do wonders for their well-being.
These produce prescription programs are all about fighting heart problems and diseases related to obesity. They do it by giving people these awesome packs of fruits and vegetables they can pick up regularly or by delivering fresh produce right to their doorstep.
Recent Studies Supports the Benefits of These Programs
Some recent studies have shown how excellent these prescription programs can be. One called “Recipe4Health” has been delivering free produce to people’s homes in Alameda County, California.
Not only do they get fresh fruits and vegetables, but they also attend group medical visits, where they learn about nutrition and staying active. Researchers investigated what happened to almost 5,300 middle-aged patients who went to these special health centers.
According to reports, these centers help people who don’t have much money or insurance. All the participants had a long-term health issue or they didn’t have enough food. Hence, they wanted to see how these produce programs could benefit people who needed it the most.
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Healthcare Providers Sent an Electronic “Prescription” to Recipe4Health
Lisa Goldman Rosas, a Stanford School of Medicine assistant professor, said, “Instead of going to the pharmacy, the prescription goes straight to the farm.” “The fact that it comes from your provider is very powerful,” she added. “It’s sending the message that food is part of your health because your provider cares about it.”
The researchers looked at the health records of the patients who received produce deliveries and compared them to those who didn’t. After a year, the ones who received fruits and vegetables had much lower levels of the bad cholesterol that clogs up your arteries. Plus, some of them even had lower blood sugar levels.
Not only did the participants eat more fruits and vegetables, but they also became more active. But here’s the thing: This research hasn’t been reviewed by other experts or published in a journal yet. However, it seems like the program didn’t greatly impact their blood pressure or body mass indexes.
A Similar Study Analyzed the Impact of Nine Produce Programs Run by Wholesome Wave
A 2023 study examined nine produce programs run by Wholesome Wave, an organization that helps communities dealing with poverty and a lack of good food. These programs had about 1,800 kids who were overweight or obese and around 2,000 adults who had health issues like obesity, diabetes, or high blood pressure.
Once the participants met with a medical professional, they received some money each month. It could be about $15 to $300, either on a card or as a voucher. They could use that to buy fruits and vegetables at a nearby farmer’s market or grocery store.
The study found that the prescriptions made a difference for the adults. Their blood sugar control reportedly improved, their blood pressure also went down, and their body mass indexes improved.
“Our findings suggest these programs really could be an important and complementary part of clinical care moving forward,” said Kurt Hager, co-author of the analysis and a health sciences instructor at UMass Chan Medical School.
Produce Prescriptions Gained New Attention After 2022
That study from 2022 to 2023 was impressive. It estimated that if around 6.5 million adults with diabetes and food insecurity were given produce prescriptions for like 25 years, it could prevent nearly 300,000 cases of heart problems. And it could save almost $40 billion in healthcare costs.
The produce prescriptions became known after the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in 2022. They made it a priority to help people on Medicare and Medicaid get better access to nutrition services. As a result, the prescriptions for fruits and vegetables started getting more attention.
Hager said that such programs have historically been “unsustainable long term if they’re solely dependent on grants and foundation support and donations, so there’s a really big move right now to have health insurance begin paying for some of these programs.”
Hager was saying that more states make the most of these Medicaid waivers. Those waivers that let them try out new health services. In February 2024, they discovered that California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington were all like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” They approved waivers that let Medicaid people get healthy food directly.
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Researchers From Southern California and New York City Gathered More Evidence
The researchers are gathering more evidence about these produce prescriptions. They did this trial in Southern California with 450 people. After getting weekly produce deliveries for six months, the people with Type 2 diabetes had lower blood sugar levels.
And there’s this other trial in New York City, where families who got fresh produce delivered to their homes were more food secure and less stressed overall. In that New York trial, 250 families with overweight or obese children were recruited.
Then, they were split into two groups. One group received locally grown fruits and vegetables for 24 weeks, along with tips on eating healthy and kid-friendly recipes. The other group, though, only received the tips.
The director of that study, Roopa Kalyanaraman Marcello, said that the deliveries didn’t necessarily make families eat more fruits and vegetables. It turns out that they ended up buying less produce from the store. The deliveries did affect the kids.
They started eating a wider variety of foods. It’s like the produce deliveries opened up their taste buds to new things. “Early childhood is the most critical period for shaping dietary patterns and preferences,” she said. “We wanted to intervene at the earliest point possible.”
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