Docs Prescribing Healthy Food

Walgreens has partnered with some Chicago healthcare providers to address the issue of "food deserts" in the city where communities have little access to healthy, fresh food. The retailer has added these fresh food items to their stores, and is working with community doctors to educate people about how eating right can affect their diabetes positively. The patient leaves with a "prescription" for healthy foods, and can get them at a discount at a nearby Walgreens. For the announcement from Walgreens, click here.

In my opinion, programs like this could have a greater impact on public health than healthcare reform, drug development, or the next big technological advance. Most of the illness in the U.S. is lifestyle and diet related. Getting good, healthy food to the people who currently do not have it, and teaching them about how it can improve their health is at the foundation of changing our nation's health. Kudos to Walgreens for this pilot program, and let's hope it works and can expand to communities nationwide. A couple of quotations seem appropriate:

"He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skill of the physician."
- Chinese Proverb

"Leave your drugs in the chemist's pot if you can heal the patient with food."
- Hippocrates

"The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."
- Thomas A Edison