Adults who picked up free, dietitian-designed plant-based groceries every week at a Massachusetts community health center for close to three years saw their blood pressure and weight drop as the packages added up. The findings come from 68 patients at the Mass General Brigham Revere Community Health Center food pantry, published October 1 in the CDC's journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
The results matter for the millions of Americans who struggle to afford healthy food while managing high blood pressure. Nearly half of U.S. adults, 48.1%, have high blood pressure, and only about 22.5% have it under control, according to CDC data from 2017 to March 2020. Most patients in the Revere study had public insurance, which places the research squarely in the debate over whether Medicaid and other payers should cover groceries as health care.
