Food policies do work. Subsidies and taxes can protect against cardiovascular diseases

Food policies like taxing sugar or offering subsidies for fruits and vegetables can promote a better diet and protect form cardiovascular diseases.

Food policies work and they might even help prevent cardiovascular diseases, a new study coming from the University of Liverpool argues. They looked at economic incentives and found that subsidies alone could help prevent thousands of deaths as a result of cardiovascular diseases.

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death globally. More people die annually from CVDs than from any other cause and this is also true for the United States where the impact of economic incentives was studied.

Taxes on sugary drinks, subsidies for fruits and vegetables and also advertising campaigns have proved effective in raising awareness and changing dietary habits but scientists wanted to know if these tools could also help prevent the CVD death toll.

The research, conducted by the University’s Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, Imperial College London and colleagues at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, US, examined the existing US IMPACT Food Policy Model, coupled with data on CVD mortality, to determine how different food policy scenarios might impact CVD deaths.

What they found was that subsidies are the most efficient economic incentives in the fight against CVDs related deaths. Scientists say that a national subsidy of only 10% for fruits and vegetables can potentially result in 150,500 fewer CVDs attributable deaths by 2030.

The least impact was recorded for mass media campaigns aimed at changing dietary habits. According to the findings, it could avert some 25,800 CVD deaths.

A 30% fruit and vegetable subsidy targeting only SNAP recipients was estimated to avert 35,100 CVD deaths. But targeting SNAP, scientists say, would be the most efficient way of reducing disparities of CVDs in food stamp recipients and non-recipients.

A 10% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages might avert 31,000 deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases.

“The findings of this study have important implications for crafting specific price and incentive policy approaches to optimise access to fruits and vegetables and reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages,” said Dr. Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard from the University of Liverpool.

But the largest impact would be obtained by combining all three economic incentives which, the study estimates, will not only reduce disparities but also help save 230,000 lives.

“Policies effectively increasing fruit and vegetable consumption or reducing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption might powerfully reduce cardiovascular disease mortality and disparities. Furthermore, a combination of these policies could be even more powerful,” said Dr Piotr Bandosz from the University of Liverpool and the Medical University of Gdansk.

And scientists have one more argument on their side. The healthier diet that would result from adding more vegetables and fruits on the dinner table and cutting down on sugary drinks will likely impact other diseases, an effect which was not calculated in this study.