Page 84 - Time Special Edition Alternative Medicine (January 2020)
P. 84
Just
What the
Doctor Ordered
The medical community is starting to consider the
possibility that food is the best medicine
BY ALICE PARK
When Tom ShicoWich’S Toe STarTed feeling mended that he try a new program designed to help
numb in 2010, he brushed it off as a temporary ache. patients like him. Launched in 2017 by the Geis-
At the time, he didn’t have health insurance, so he inger Health System at one of its community hos-
put off going to the doctor. The toe became infected, pitals, the Fresh Food Farmacy provides healthy
and he got so sick that he stayed in bed for two days foods—heavy on fruits, vegetables, lean meats and
with what he assumed was the flu. When he finally low-sodium options—to patients in Northumber-
saw a doctor, the physician immediately sent Shi- land County, Pennsylvania, and teaches them how
cowich to the emergency room. Several days later, to incorporate those foods into their daily diet. Each
surgeons amputated his toe, and he ended up spend- week, Shicowich, who lives below the federal pov-
ing a month in the hospital to recover. erty line and is food-insecure, picks up recipes and
Shicowich lost his toe because of complications free groceries from the Farmacy’s food bank and has
of Type 2 diabetes as he struggled to keep his blood his nutrition questions answered and blood sugar
sugar under control. He was overweight and on dia- monitored by the dietitians and health-care man-
betes medications, but his diet of fast food and con- agers assigned to the Farmacy. In the first year and
venient, frozen processed meals had pushed his dis- a half after he joined the program, Shicowich lost
ease to life-threatening levels. 60 pounds, and his A1C level, a measure of his blood
After a few more years of trying unsuccessfully sugar, dropped from 10.9 to 6.9, which means he
to treat Shicowich’s diabetes, his doctor recom- still has diabetes but it’s out of the dangerous range.
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