According to a study published in JAMA Cardiology, struggling to afford or have access to nutritious food today (food insecurity) could mean heart problems down the road, finding that young adults living with food insecurity have a 41% greater risk for developing heart disease in midlife. The Northwestern Medicine study found this to be true, even after taking into account several factors like demographic and socioeconomic.
These findings are alarming as with soaring prices in recent years and the prevalence of food deserts, a large portion of people are struggling to get enough nutritious foods to stay healthy, with food insecurity affecting at least 1 in 8 American households.
“We’ve known that food insecurity and heart disease often go hand in hand, but this study shows, for the first time, that food insecurity comes first,” said Dr. Jenny Jia, an instructor of general internal medicine and preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine internist. “That makes it a clear target for prevention — if we address food insecurity early, we may be able to reduce the burden of heart disease later.”
The study
For this study, data were analyzed from the long-term CARDIA Study, identifying those in their early 30s to mid 40s reporting food insecurities to compare their health outcomes over the next 20 years to their counterparts who were not affected by food insecurity.
What they found
The analysis revealed that among the 3,616 participants, those with food insecurity were over 41% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, with 11% developing heart disease compared to 6% of those with adequate food access.
“For a long time, there was this chicken-or-the-egg question — does food insecurity cause heart disease, or does heart disease make food insecurity worse because of the high cost of healthcare?” Jia said. “By following people over two decades, we were able to show that food insecurity, on its own, significantly increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.”
Screening for food insecurity
The researchers suggest that healthcare providers should screen for food insecurity and connect patients with community resources and make those living in food deserts aware of meal and food delivery services such as Little Spoon, HelloFresh, Home Chef, Factor75, Goldbelly, BistroMD, Plentiful Kitchen, Blue Apron, Purple Carrot, Sunbasket, Hungryroot, Splendid Spoon, Green Chef, Daily Harvest, CookUnity, and Imperfect Foods, among others.
“The more we screen for it, the better,” Jia said, adding that “we need better strategies to help people once they screen positive. Do we connect them to social workers who can refer them to existing community programs? Should healthcare systems develop their own interventions? These are the next big questions.”
The researchers plan to continue tracking the participants to gain more understanding of the long-term effects of food insecurity.
“It’s surprising to see heart disease in this group, which doesn’t include those 65 or older,” Jia said. “As they near 80, we plan to revisit the study to explore the evolving link to heart disease.”
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https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2025/03/food-insecurity-today-heart-disease-tomorrow?fj=1
http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamacardio.2025.0109
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https://worldhealth.net/news/junk-food-diets-can-cause-long-term-damage-brain/
https://worldhealth.net/news/not-eating-enough-these-foods-associated-cardiovascular-disease/
