Miller Speaks on Investing in a Healthier America During Ways and Means Hearing
Washington D.C. - Today, Congresswoman Carol Miller (R-WV) participated in a Ways and Means Health Subcommittee hearing focused on investing in a healthier America and promoting chronic disease prevention and treatment.
Congresswoman Miller began by discussing the severity of chronic diseases in West Virginia and how this impacts her work in Congress.
“Thank you for taking the time to be here, to help educate us, and to testify on such an important issue. It’s extremely personal to me and my constituents because I am from West Virginia and West Virginia has the highest rates of diabetes, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and kidney disease in the country. This is nothing to brag about, but it is something that constantly guides my work and the work of health care providers in my home state,” said Congresswoman Miller.
Congresswoman Miller shared examples of positive outcomes patients have had from food assistance programs when trying to live healthier lifestyles and asked Dr. Mark Hyman from the Institute for Functional Health about how food can help patients manage chronic diseases.
“One effort that I have been very impressed by is the ‘Food is Medicine’ program at Marshall Health Network that’s in my hometown of Huntington. The ‘Food is Medicine’ program screens patients for food insecurity and social needs, provides medically indicated food assistance, and encourages nutritious food utilization. This approach to chronic disease management has been working wonders for patients in our state. There is a medically indicated food box program in a little tiny town of Lavallette, which is led by a community health worker, and it recently showed that all 61 patients participating in the program have gotten their blood pressure under control. Similar food assistance programs provided to dialysis and oncology patients with food insecurity have improved nutrition and outcomes as well. Dr. Hyman, you’ve dedicated your career to the notion that food plays a huge part in managing chronic disease. Can you speak a little bit more on some of the benefits of getting patients on track for healthier living?” asked Congresswoman Miller.
“I’ve been practicing for 30 years and I would say that food is the most powerful tool in my toolkit as a doctor for a broad range of diseases, obviously diabetes but many other things. For example, dementia which is one of the most costly diseases because of the effect on caregivers and the loss of proactivity is now called Type-3 diabetes of the effective resistance of sugar on the brain. Across the spectrum of chronic disease, not just the ones we are particularly thinking about like heart disease, lyme disease, and hyper-tension, even cancer is primarily driven by sugar and starch in our diet, the main cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, and these cancer rates are rising in younger members of our population in 30, 40 year olds. The real driver is our diet. Until we come to terms with the fact that in our country we’re going to not only threaten the health of our nation, we’re challenging our economy at the $4.9 trillion. 40% of that bill is footed by the federal government in one program or another. 30% of our federal budget is completely unsustainable and some of it’s also preventable. If we tackle this intelligently, coherently, and look to cross policies that have to be done across different committees, across different jurisdictions, whether it is medicare reform, whether it is food labeling, package labeling from the FDA, addressing the problems of food marketing for children, or addressing the problem with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or dietary guidelines, or nutrition research funding. There are so many levers to pull as we try to change this tsunami that’s coming at us. It’s almost been this invisible threat because when we graduated medical school this wasn’t a problem,” responded Dr. Hyman.
Congresswoman Miller highlighted her Chronic Kidney Disease Improvement in Research and Treatment Act and asked Dr. Anne Peters from University of Southern California (USC) Schaeffer to explain the advantages of screenings and educating patients on chronic diseases.
“Studies have overwhelmingly showed us that screenings for diabetes, cholesterol, chronic kidney disease, and cancers can be the difference in a [patient’s] health journey. I introduced a bill, called the Chronic Kidney Disease Improvement in Research and Treatment Act, to address these issues just for kidney disease. My bill would expand the Medicare annual wellness benefit to include kidney disease screening for seniors, as many patients do not know they have kidney disease until it is too late. The bill would also increase access to the Medicare kidney disease education benefit so that physicians can help teach patients more about managing their disease and any comorbidities they may have and not know. Dr. Peters, you have done tons of work surrounding preventative care for chronic diseases. Can you speak to the clinical benefits of increasing education and screening so that patients are more informed about their options?” asked Congresswoman Miller.
"I think those are incredibly powerful tools because if you don’t know you have a risk, you’re not going to go find out and see if you can do anything about it, but education alone in many areas, particularly with diabetes, isn’t enough. You need to couple that with treatment and treatment should start with lifestyle. I see all of that as part and parcel of the same process, but education is necessary so people realize that they must do something. I think that people go into these weird states of denial. I’m not a psychologist, but they’ll see family members who are blind or on dialysis, but they won’t get tested because they are too afraid to find out if they have the same disease. We’ve done programs with churches, we’ve done programs with schools, and there are all sorts of ways you can get this out there," responded Dr. Peters.
“Screening is really important. I think we wait too late; we are reactive and not proactive in medicine. That's part of why co-founders of the company Function Health allows people access to their own biological data without having to go through insurance or doctors. They can track all these things from kidney function, cardiovascular health, to metabolic health, and diagnostics that are not done at your annual physical. I think early screening detection is important. It’s essential and I think it’s something that needs to be looked at very carefully as something we can motivate our Medicare patients to do as well as our citizens in general to do early screening detection,” responded Dr. Hyman.
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