Scientists have explained why it is important and beneficial to follow the diet prescribed by your doctor

These are so-called medically tailored meals. These are ready-made meals prepared by a nutritionist for people with diseases in which nutrition has a strong influence on the condition, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, depression and other conditions.

Important: The study does not prove that diet is a substitute for medication or a doctor. It is an additional medical support, especially for people who find it difficult to buy their own food, cook and consistently follow the right diet.

Details

The study is published in Nature Medicine. The authors analysed data from the Medicaid programme in Massachusetts, which is the US system of medical care for people with low income or disability. The analysis included data from 2020-2023 from 11 medical systems.

Researchers compared 1,866 people who received therapeutically tailored meals with similar patients who met the programme's criteria but did not receive such meals. The comparison took into account age, demographics, diagnoses, and previous use of medical care.

All meals were prepared and delivered by Community Servings, a nonprofit organisation. Participants received 10 meals per week - breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. Beforehand, everyone had a consultation with a registered dietitian nutritionist to ensure the diet was appropriate for their diagnoses, restrictions and preferences.

The results were notable: patients who received these meals had 31% fewer hospitalisations and 20% fewer emergency department visits compared to similar patients without this support. In select groups, the programme was also associated with savings in Medicaid costs, even when the cost of the meals was taken into account.

The logic here is this: a person with diabetes, heart disease, or kidney disease may find it difficult to prepare appropriate meals every day. If he or she eats randomly, skips meals, or eats foods that worsen the condition, the risk of exacerbations increases. And exacerbations often end in an ambulance call, an emergency room visit or hospitalisation.

Therapeutically selected meals help to close this gap between the doctor's recommendation and real life. Patients are not just told to "eat right", but are given ready-made meals that are already tailored to their condition.

Why it matters

Many chronic diseases are nutritionally dependent. In diabetes, carbohydrate control and regularity of meals are important. In cardiovascular disease, the amount of salt, saturated fat and the overall composition of the diet. In kidney disease, restrictions may concern protein, potassium, phosphorus or sodium. It is difficult to follow such rules on one's own, especially if one has little money, little energy, limited mobility or no stable access to quality foods.

This is why the idea of "food as part of medicine" is becoming more prominent. This doesn't mean that food cures everything. But it can reduce the burden on the body and help avoid conditions that lead to expensive and arduous treatment.

For the health care system, this is important too. Hospitalisations and emergency care are expensive. If properly managed nutrition helps a proportion of patients go to hospital less often, such a programme can be beneficial not only for the individual but also for the budget.

Background

In the US, Food is Medicine programmes have been developing for several years. They include therapeutically tailored meals, food kits, fruit and vegetable prescriptions, nutritional counselling and other ways to integrate nutrition into medical care. Tufts Food is Medicine Institute describes this trend as an effort to make nutrition part of chronic disease prevention and management, rather than leaving patients alone with generic advice.

Earlier studies have already shown a similar trend. For example, a 2019 JAMA Internal Medicine analysis linked participation in a therapeutically tailored nutrition programme to fewer hospitalisations and lower healthcare costs in people with complex chronic conditions.

But the new work is important for its scale and real-world Medicaid data. This is not a theoretical model or a small pilot, but an analysis of a programme that worked in a conventional health system. That said, the study has a limitation: participants were not randomly assigned, so the influence of other factors cannot be completely ruled out. In other words, the link is strong, but it can't be presented as definitive proof of causality.

Source

Study: "Medically tailored meals receipt and healthcare utilisation and costs in Massachusetts' Medicaid demonstration", Nature Medicine, 2026.