Saving Lives with Affordable Produce

By Jonathan Springston, Associate Managing Editor, AHC Media

Lowering the price of fruits and vegetables could save thousands of lives over more than a decade, better results than one would obtain through a mass media campaign, researchers with the American Heart Association said this week.

Reducing fruit and vegetable prices by 10 percent through 2030 could lower the death rate from heart disease and stroke about 1 percent, saving more than 60,000 lives over a 15-year period. Researchers said reducing prices 30 percent would be most effective – saving between 191,000 and 205,000 lives over 15 years.

In comparison, researchers reported that a year-long mass media campaign promoting fruits and vegetables could reduce the cardiovascular death rate by about 0.1 percent, or 7,500 to 8,300 lives. A media campaign lasting 15 years could save 22,800 to 24,800 deaths over 15 years.

Researchers noted price reduction policies would affect non-Hispanic whites and blacks equally. However, they found a mass media campaign would be about 35 percent less effective in saving non-Hispanic blacks.

“Poor diet is a large contributor to cardiovascular disease, which is the biggest killer in the United States. Governments must therefore implement effective dietary policies to tackle this growing burden,” said Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard, lead researcher and academic clinical fellow and public health registrar at Imperial College London. “Both mass media campaigns and achieving price reductions of fruits and vegetables are important tools in achieving this.”

AHC Media offers a premier educational source for cardiologists: Clinical Cardiology Alert. Click here to check out the March issue. Additionally, AHC just published STEMI Watch: Diagnosis, Treatment, Complications, and Long-Term Management, an online course designed to help cardiologists treat STEMI patients.

AHC also offers a comprehensive resource for nutrition and other integrative therapies: Integrative Medicine Alert. Click here to check out the March issue.