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‘Food is Medicine’ to advance mental health and build resilient food systems globally

Nature Food volume 6, pages 223–227 (2025)Cite this article

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‘Food is Medicine’ has been increasingly accepted in the US healthcare system. Developing and implementing such programmes globally could advance mental health, improve providers’ experiences and stimulate positive change in the food and agricultural sectors.

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Fig. 1: Established and emerging trends in FIM across three core domains.

Change history

  • 30 April 2025

    Following publication of this article, the shapes used in Table 1 and its legend have been updated for clarity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Food is Medicine Institute, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA

    Ronit Ridberg, Caroline Owens, Meng Wang, Lizbeth Moreno Loaeza, Lu Wang, Cecilia Gerard & Dariush Mozaffarian

Authors
  1. Ronit Ridberg
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  2. Caroline Owens
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  3. Meng Wang
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  4. Lizbeth Moreno Loaeza
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  5. Lu Wang
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  6. Cecilia Gerard
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  7. Dariush Mozaffarian
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ronit Ridberg.

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Competing interests

D.M. reports scientific advisory board membership at Beren Therapeutics, Brightseed, Calibrate, Elysium Health, Filtricine, HumanCo, Instacart Health, January Inc., Season Health, Validation Institute and WndrHLTH; equity in Calibrate and HumanCo; and chapter royalties from UpToDate. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Food thanks Patrick Caron and Jennifer Garner for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Ridberg, R., Owens, C., Wang, M. et al. ‘Food is Medicine’ to advance mental health and build resilient food systems globally. Nat Food 6, 223–227 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01145-8

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