Measuring Diet Quality: The Key to Advancing Food as Medicine Research

Effective Food as Medicine interventions are contingent upon accurate assessment of the most critical aspect: improvement in nutrition.

DETROIT, MI, UNITED STATES, March 21, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In response to the increasing recognition of the pivotal role of nutrition in well-being, a recent surge of Food as Medicine (FaM) research has emerged, buoyed by investments from leading health organizations and philanthropic institutes.

Food as Medicine, the use of healthy food as a form of medical treatment or preventive measure for individuals with diet-related health risks, food insecurity, and/or chronic conditions, has great potential to improve public health. Diet quality, measured objectively, is the single leading predictor of the risks for both premature death from all causes, and all major chronic diseases, in the United States today. In at-risk, food insecure populations, the associated risks are greater still.

FaM interventions, often recommended by healthcare providers, organizations, or insurance plans, have shown promising results in reducing chronic disease risk, improving health outcomes, reducing healthcare costs, addressing disparities, and alleviating nutrition and food insecurity.

According to Dr. Kevin Volpp, Scientific Director, American Heart Association, Food is Medicine Initiative, "researchers are looking for ways to develop and test more effective incentives for individuals to choose healthy foods."

This recent surge of interest and investment in research reflect a growing recognition of the potential impact of these programs. The momentum presents opportunities to explore and evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions, paving the way for sustainable support and broader accessibility to the most impactful programs.

A critical imperative in this research is the inclusion of a measurement tool that can quickly and easily assess diet quality in all participants, despite each person’s language, reading level, cultural identity, and tech literacy. Administering FaM interventions designed to improve or prevent adverse health outcomes—without measuring diet quality at the start and over time—is analogous to attempts to manage hypertension without measuring blood pressure.

Diet quality photo navigation, a patented, scientifically validated advance in rapid, efficient assessment of dietary intake and overall diet quality, is deploying into a fast-growing array of food-as-medicine research initiatives, helping to demonstrate the very improvements in diet quality these programs are designed to achieve. This method is available only in Diet ID™, a comprehensive digital dietary assessment platform. Diet ID has been successfully implemented into an array of FAM studies across the nation, embedding the capability to measure diet quality—the critical thing these interventions are directed at improving. The Diet ID method is rapid, easy, and scalable to whole populations. The Diet ID digital dietary assessment is often used in research because of its accuracy, scalability, and ability to measure impact of the intervention. Diet ID is the only tool of its kind to prioritize cultural inclusivity, catering to diverse populations with a broad spectrum of ethnic foods to assist in a deep understanding of how people eat.

Diet ID has partnered with top academic institutions nationwide that lead FAM research. The Diet ID platform is used as the primary dietary assessment tool in their research projects. Each project delivers unique and valuable insights into the efficacy of various programs across the healthcare landscape, and the studies utilize Diet ID to measure diet quality in the participants.

According to Christopher D. Gardner, Director of Nutrition Studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and Rehnborg Farquhar Professor of Medicine, "Studies are only as good as the applicability of the results. Understanding change in diet quality is key to measuring impact in nutrition interventions."

A study at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, compared Diet ID with a traditional diet assessment tool among a cohort of African American adults with high cardiovascular disease risk and overweight or obesity. The participants received one of two types of healthy diet instruction in order to understand the efficacy of diet on cardiovascular disease risk reduction.

The Jefferson Center for Connected Care at Thomas Jefferson University in PA is leading an ongoing study, Project MiNT, which is investigating whether provision of medically tailored meals, with and without the addition of telehealth-delivered medical nutrition therapy, improves blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes. It will also assess the cost implications of the intervention.

Dr. David L. Katz, a past president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and Diet ID founder, says, “Measuring what we are aiming to manage is fundamental to every effort in medicine and public health. When the focus is on improving diet quality, measuring and tracking that is essential. We are honored to collaborate with a fast-growing community of leading nutrition researchers to demonstrate how diet quality is improved with effective food-as-medicine interventions. Together we can advance the goal of fixing diet wherever it is broken, and of making diet quality the vital sign it deserves to be.”

Rachna Govani
Diet ID
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