The authors of a new study conclude that healthful food prescriptions would be more cost-effective after 5 years than preventive drug treatments.

As the cost of healthcare rises, could prescription vegetables save money?

A team of researchers analyzed the effects of healthful food prescriptions in people who were covered by both Medicare and Medicaid. The study found that offsetting the cost of healthful foods by 30 percent through health insurance would improve health and reduce costs.  The study used data from recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES).  The researchers modeled two different scenarios that would play out if Medicare and Medicaid covered 30 percent of healthful food purchases.  In both scenarios, these programs would cover 30 percent of fruit and vegetable purchases. However, in the second scenario, they would also cover 30 percent of purchases of whole grains, nuts, seafood, and plant oils.  The effect of covering healthy food in both scenarios was assessed at 5-, 10-, and 20-year and at a simulated lifetime horizon.

The findings showed that the first scenario would prevent about 1.93 million cases of heart disease, while the second one would prevent close to 3.28 million cases of heart disease as well as 120,000 cases of diabetes. The positive effect on diabetes is due to the role that whole grains, nuts, and seeds play in diabetes prevention.  The researchers found that encouraging people to eat healthy foods through healthy food prescriptions could be as or more cost-effective than other common interventions, such as preventative drug treatments for hypertension or high cholesterol.

Reducing the need for healthcare

Both scenario one and scenario two significantly reduced healthcare utilization, leading to savings of about $40 billion and $100 billion respectively. The total costs for subsidizing just fruits and vegetables were $122.6 billion, while it cost $210.4 billion to cover the broader range of healthful foods.  Comparing the net costs with savings and health benefits, both scenarios were highly cost-effective.

These new findings support the concept of Food is Medicine and that innovative programs to encourage and reimburse healthy eating can and should be integrated into the healthcare system.”

This research forms part of the Food Policy Review and Intervention Cost-Effectiveness (Food-PRICE) research initiative, which is a collaboration of international researchers who are working to improve the health of the U.S. population by identifying possible nutrition strategies and evaluating their cost-effectiveness.