Food is Medicine for Health

 

The concept of food is medicine or food as medicine, has gained prominence in the public discussion around food in recent years. Everyone from public health officials and academics to Tik Tok and Instagram influencers have an opinion. This is an examination of what the concept is, what it isn’t and why it offers a new way to think about diet, disease prevention and health.

Diet Related Illness
To understand where this movement came from we should first start with the public health crisis in the United States. Diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCD’s) like cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, obesity, and metabolic conditions like hypertension and high cholesterol have been on the rise in recent decades. According to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 60% of American adults have diet-related chronic disease. This contributes to the over $4 trillion dollars spent in health care spending annually.

Part of the reason for the prevalence of diet-related NCD’s in the US is the availability and consumption of calorically dense, nutritionally low and inexpensive processed and ultra-processed foods. Many of these foods are designed to be good tasting and affordable for the average consumer, but their nutritional value is not a priority in their production and sale. This is exacerbated by the limited access to healthy food amongst the over 43 million people facing some level of food insecurity in the US. People facing hunger or in poverty have less dietary choice than consumers that can afford to purchase more varieties of nutritious food.

Ancient Concept & Modern Science

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”

This quote is often attributed to Hippocrates, the Ancient Greek philosopher, considered the father of Western medicine. Although the attribution of the quote is most likely apocryphal (there’s no historical evidence that Hippocrates actually said it), it’s often cited by proponents of food as medicine as the distillation of the ancient wisdom of the concept. Many societies around the world did indeed look to foods as the treatment for disorders and to fit into their understanding of health, before modern science. The modern formulation might be rooted in ancient wisdom, but is based in the science of nutrition and medicine.
The modern concept can be defined as eating healthy foods to achieve health and prevent disease. Simply put, eating a nutritious diet helps prevent medical problems before they start. One of the critiques of the current healthcare system is it focuses on treating medical conditions as they arise instead of their causes and prevention. Food is medicine proponents argue that prevention through healthy diet and lifestyle should be the first priority of public health.

Food is Medicine in Practice
Eating healthy food is good for you (not a groundbreaking revelation), but what does food is medicine mean in practice? Beyond just eating a healthy diet, food is medicine is about the promotion of strategies that combine personal health needs and social needs with personally tailored healthy diets and medical care interventions to promote overall health. The chart below from the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University illustrates some of the ways this personalized process can work as part of preventative medicine and medical treatment.

 

 

Caveat Emptor, Alternative Health & Food is Medicine
With all of the alternative ideas being promoted in the health marketplace or on social media, it’s important to remember that food is medicine is not an alternative to medical treatment, or a cure-all to every medical condition. Instead, it offers a strategy for disease prevention and integration into healthcare to promote health. If you see an influencer on Tik Tok or Instagram using the concept of food is medicine to sell the next magic elixir or super food, exercise caution…

 

Let us know what you think. Is food is medicine the future of disease prevention and healthcare? What should be done to promote healthy diets instead?