Native American & Indigenous Studies at Penn
Congratulations to Lauren Eberly MD MPH for her recent stuty on nutrition and health on the Navajo Nation, under the aegis of the Leonard David Institute for Health Economics at Penn:
At a hospital serving the Navajo Nation, a research team led by University of Pennsylvania LDI Senior Fellow and cardiologist Lauren Eberly, MD, MPH, tested whether medically tailored meals featuring traditional Navajo foods could improve outcomes for patients with heart failure. Participants received meals prepared with mutton, beans, squash, corn, and other Diné (Navajo) staples. Her randomized trial found the culturally tailored meal program reduced hospitalizations and emergency department visits.
The study was grounded in the recognition that heart failure is one of the leading causes of hospitalization in Indigenous communities. Many people living in the Navajo Nation face major barriers to healthy eating. Grocery stores are scarce, fresh food is often difficult to obtain, and food insecurity is common. The researchers wanted to see whether providing healthy meals based on traditional Navajo foodways could improve both health and quality of life.
Titled “An Indigenous Food Is Medicine Intervention: The MUTTON-HF Randomized Clinical Trial,” the work was published in the July 27 issue of the JAMA Internal Medicine journal. It is the first randomized clinical trial to show that a medically tailored meal program built around traditional Indigenous foods can reduce hospitalizations among heart failure patients living in a Native community. The acronym MUTTON (Medically Utilized Tailored Traditional Food to Optimize Nutrition) also refers to the meat that is a cultural cornerstone of Navajo life, reflected in the community’s ubiquitous phrase, “Dibé bé iiná” (“Sheep is life”).
More than Just Food
Eberly explained, “The concept of food as medicine is really a longstanding belief among many Native populations. Traditional foods are sacred, they’re healing, and are not only physically nourishing, but also can advance spiritual and emotional dimensions of well-being, as well as foster connections to culture, to ancestors, and to the land. And so there’s a lot of excitement, a lot of momentum in Native communities to reclaim traditional pre-contact foods, to advance health. So within that context, using community-based participatory methods, we designed MUTTON-HF.”
Eberly, a Staff Cardiologist at the New Mexico Gallup Indian Medical Center of the Indian Health Service (IHS), is also an Assistant Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Penn. She was recently appointed National Chief Clinical Consultant for Cardiology for the IHS.
She grew up in New Mexico and earned her MD from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She also completed a Residency in Global Health Equity and Internal Medicine before coming to Penn for a fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine. She then returned to New Mexico to practice and conduct research in the Navajo Nation.
Follow this link to the full story https://ldi.upenn.edu/our-work/research-updates/traditional-navajo-foods-reduced-hospitalizations-in-heart-failure-trial/
Follow this link to the associated video: https://youtu.be/HGR467qgd-8?si=kTUru_KFiudwhJHO