THURSDAY, Nov. 13, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Black adults living in food deserts can beat high blood pressure, with a little help.
Folks living in an area with few grocery stores had a greater reduction in blood pressure if they participated in a program that home-delivered healthy eats, researchers recently reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
They fared better than a similar group given money to buy groceries and plan meals on their own, the study found.
“So much of what we know about healthy eating has been conducted with food prepared in research laboratory kitchens, often using specially designed foods,” lead researcher Dr. Stephen Juraschek said in a news release.
“This study is significant because it is focused on helping people eat healthier, more nutritious foods they can purchase in a regular grocery store,” said Juraschek, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston and an associate professor of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Our results confirm that with the right resources and support, people can make healthy food choices, which ultimately improves their cardiovascular and metabolic health.”
For the new study, researchers recruited 180 people living with high blood pressure in a food desert and randomly assigned them to one of two groups.
The first group received 12 weeks of home-delivered groceries patterned on the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet along with weekly nutrition counseling, while the second got $500 every four weeks to buy groceries with no dietary counseling.
The DASH diet focuses on more veggies, fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy, beans, nuts and legumes, and less fatty meats, salt, sweets and added sugars, researchers said.
Systolic blood pressure among the DASH group decreased by an average of 5.7 mm/Hg, the study found, compared to an average 2.2 mm/HG decrease among the folks provided grocery cash.
People in the DASH group also experienced a decrease in their diastolic blood pressure. Systolic is blood pressure during a heartbeat, while diastolic is between heartbeats.
DASH diners also saw a decrease in their “bad” LDL cholesterol levels, researchers added.
However, these benefits were short-lived in the food desert environment.
Researchers continued tracking the participants after the end of the 12-week grocery program. Within three months, people’s average blood pressure and LDL cholesterol had returned to previous levels.
“We thought that some of the benefits of the nutrition changes would be maintained after the groceries were discontinued,” Juraschek said. “However, the study did not address other important barriers, such as the cost of nutritious foods or access to grocery stores.”
Without addressing these social barriers, he said it might have been challenging for participants to continue eating healthier foods even after being counseled on the impact of diet on high blood pressure and cholesterol.
“Nutrition is a critical component of preventing cardiovascular disease,” Juraschek said. “Everyone should be able to access healthy foods, and public health programs and policies are needed to promote and support healthy eating habits in the United States.”
Researchers presented these findings Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans.
More information
The National Institutes of Health has more on the DASH Diet.
SOURCE: American Heart Association, news release, Nov. 9, 2025
What This Means For You
Food deserts can harm people’s health by limiting their options for buying healthy groceries.
