AHA Scientific Sessions 2026 AbstractNov 7, 2026, 01:09 GMT

Diet and blood sugar improved in adults given tailored meals

Diet-quality scores rose 3.15 points from baseline over eight months across two meal programs for adults with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

Paper by Nour Makarem, Erica P. Wood, Marina Garcia, +3Kelly Naranjo · Columbia University Irving Medical Center · God's Love We Deliver

Red blood cells carry many sugar marks on the left and fewer beside a plate of leafy vegetables, beans, and fish on the right.

Our read

Interventions

Studied:: Randomized trial in 110 adults with co-existing T2D and high BP, 8 months (Multicenter)
What changed:: Across both groups, diet-quality scores rose 3.15 points from baseline
The catch:: Both groups received meals and education, leaving no meal-free comparison group
In the record:: One of 6 papers on medically tailored meals on record: 5 with results in people.
Why it’s aging research:: It measures an outcome that worsens with age.

Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News

Paper

Adults with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure—110 people averaging 63 years old, 68% women—took part in an eight-month randomized trial. One group received 10 medically tailored meals weekly throughout, plus nutritional counseling. The other received 10 meals weekly for three months, then one fewer weekly meal each month, reaching five in the final month. Both groups received healthy-eating lessons, cooking demonstrations, ingredients and utensils.

Across both groups, diet-quality scores rose 3.15 points from baseline. Participants had more than twice the odds of better food security. A long-term blood sugar measure fell 0.5 percentage points. Upper and lower blood pressure readings fell 3.7 and 4.1 mmHg, respectively. No difference emerged between groups, suggesting that gradually reducing meals, alongside the healthy-eating program, had similar effects.

Why it matters

For adults managing type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure as they age, the findings support larger trials of broader access to tailored meals.

Caveats

Both groups received meals and education, leaving no meal-free comparison to separate program effects from changes over time. These conference-abstract findings concern adults whose disease was not advanced enough to qualify for existing meal programs; no detected difference between programs does not establish equal effectiveness.