PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A Philadelphia research institute is seeking medical professionals to test theories among their non-terminal cancer patients on the impact of medically tailored meals, and proposal submissions are now being accepted.
Three $50,000 grants will be awarded by the Philadelphia-based MANNA Institute, a division of the Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance. For more than three decades, it’s been providing medically tailored meals to seriously ill patients.
There is a lot of data of the benefits to build from, but MANNA says more is needed to get policies changed among health care providers and others, which is why the grants are being awarded.
Healthcare professionals will incorporate MANNA’s prescription meals into treatments of their non-terminal cancer patients, explained MANNA CEO Sue Daugherty.
“Putting somebody on a high calorie, high protein diet and doing that maybe 30 days before they start chemo, it’s going to result in someone tolerating their chemo treatments better and helping control that better and to stabilize weight,” Daugherty said.
“We know that there’s going to be some backlash,” she added. “People are going to say, ‘oh you’re finding folks to look at your own model?’ Well we are because no one else is, we would welcome folks to look into this.”
The pilot programs are expected to go for about six months. It’s a step before clinical trials.
She added they hope one day, there will be a wide variety of food pharmacies available, where prescribed diets would be recognized as treatment and it would be covered by health insurance.