-New bill offers opportunity for expanded Medicare coverage for preventive medical nutrition therapy-

 As a registered dietitian, I’m joining my colleagues in a collective high-five today—the new Medicare bill passed yesterday! This means that we can now begin to approach more coverage for medical nutrition therapy services (MNT). Nutrition counseling has been proven to play a major role in preventing conditions such as hyperlipidemia, hypertension, obesity and diabetes.

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Great news was released on Monday confirming the success rate of using a simple self-monitoring device that dietitians have been recommending for years—the food diary.  A new study by Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research with 1700 participants found that those who kept a daily food record lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t keep records. The participants also followed a healthy eating regimen – the DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) as well as engaging in 30 minutes of moderate activity per day. They also attended regular support meetings. Weight lost averaged 13 pounds during the 6-month period.  The study was sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and will appear in the August edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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