March 29, 2026
3 min read
Key takeaways:
- The GoFreshRx trial enrolled Black adults with actively treated hypertension living in communities with few grocery stores.
- The BP benefits persisted months after trial discontinuation.
NEW ORLEANS — Home-delivered groceries tailored to the low-sodium Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet improved BP among Black adults already being treated for hypertension, according to results from the GoFreshRx trial.
Even the comparator arm of this randomized trial, in which adults being treated for hypertension received stipends to do their own grocery shopping, experienced reductions in BP that persisted months after trial discontinuation, according to data presented at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Session. The results were simultaneously published in Nature Medicine.
The GoFreshRx trial enrolled Black adults with actively treated hypertension living in communities with few grocery stores. Image: Adobe Stock
Focus on adults with treated hypertension
Stephen P. Juraschek
“[GoFreshRx] is a sister trial to the GoFresh trial,” Stephen P. Juraschek, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine and nutrition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor in the department of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said during a press conference. “GoFresh sought to test and answer the question whether 12 weeks of dietitian counseling and full grocery replacement delivered to homes of Black residents of Boston who presided in communities characterized by lower concentration of grocery stores and lower median income … could lower blood pressure. In the GoFreshRx trial, we focused on adults with treated hypertension, as opposed to the prior study, which was in adults without treated hypertension.”
As Healio previously reported, after 3 months of grocery deliveries, researchers reported reductions in systolic and diastolic BP and LDL cholesterol; however, BP-lowering effects of the grocery delivery intervention were not sustained after the intervention ended.
For the GoFreshRX trial, researchers evaluated whether a similar grocery delivery intervention, also tailored to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, would lower BP among Black residents living in Boston-area food deserts who were already being treated for hypertension (mean age, 60 years; 80% women). Nearly one-third of participants had a household income of less than $30,000 per year. All participants had systolic BP between 120 mm Hg and 150 mm Hg despite active treatment, according to the study.
The trial enrolled 176 patients who were randomly assigned to weekly grocery deliveries plus dietitian counseling or three $500 stipends every 4 weeks for self-directed grocery shopping.
“We focused on four main things that provide a fair amount of flexibility for folks to partner with our dietitian and select groceries that worked for their entire family. The first principle was to cook and prepare meals at home, focusing on herbs and spices to flavor meals instead of salt. The second principle was to maintain a potassium/sodium ratio using the micronutrients of the groceries of 2:1. The third principle was to reduce saturated fat to less than 7% of all calories. The fourth principle was to follow a DASH pattern of grocery shopping that emphasized fruits and vegetables, predominantly whole grains, lean meat, low fat, dairy, nuts, seeds and legumes, and was restricted in sweets,” Juraschek said.
Based on these four principles, participants selected grocery delivery lists that could be shared with up to five adults at dinnertime, according to the presentation.
The trial was conducted for 12 weeks. The primary outcome was in-office systolic BP. Secondary outcomes included diastolic BP, BMI, HbA1c and LDL cholesterol.
Mean baseline BP was 130.5/77.8 mm Hg. At 12 weeks, researchers reported a 7 mm Hg reduction in systolic BP in the intervention group compared with a 2 mm Hg reduction in the control group (intergroup difference, 5 mm Hg; 95% CI, 8 to 1.9; P = .002).
The researchers also reported a mean reduction in diastolic BP of 1.8 mm Hg (95% CI, 3.6 to 0.1) and LDL of 7 mg/dL (95% CI, 13.6 to 0.5) in the intervention group after 12 weeks, according to the study.
Once the trial concluded, over the following 3 months without dietary intervention and counseling, the researchers observed nonsignificant increases in systolic and diastolic BP in both groups, and the differences from baseline remained significant, according to the results.
‘Potential of food delivery interventions’
“These findings highlight the potential of food delivery interventions to improve cardiometabolic health in urban Black communities after they’re treated for hypertension, with limited grocery access. We believe the maintenance is encouraging for potential cost-effectiveness over time,” Juraschek said during the press conference. “We are actively exploring this intervention in a scalable way in three different states in the United States, with the support of American Heart Association, in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. We also are working with a consortium to develop universal principles for grocery ordering in countries throughout the world, and we are working with partners to help create standardized and automated strategies for ordering groceries using a digital platform that can facilitate prescription and also local sourcing of groceries to achieve health benefits.”
Perspective
Back to Top
The GoFreshRx trial was very well done. I want to give kudos to the investigators of the study. Conducting a dietary intervention study is difficult. It is very difficult to monitor adherence and efficacy. What was important here is that when they provided the DASH diet to families, they had an improvement in both systolic and diastolic BP and LDL cholesterol. This was not changing anything therapeutically from a medicine standpoint; this was just diet alone. It was profound to see the impact that diet can have in treating hypertension. Not only was it an innovative strategy, but it actually worked.
This study looked at self-identified Black individuals with uncontrolled or difficult to control BP. I wonder if this would be the same across other populations, both underserved and well-served populations, because diet is such a big part of managing cardiometabolic diseases.
The next step is to think of creative ways to scale models like this. Can we partner with companies to help deliver healthy meals to patients, especially those with difficult-to-manage chronic diseases?
Nishant Shah, MD, FACC
Associate professor of medicine (cardiology)
Duke University School of Medicine
Disclosures: Shah reports no relevant financial disclosures.
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Juraschek SP, et al. Joint American College of Cardiology/Journal of the American Medical Association late-breaking clinical trials II. Presented at: American College of Cardiology Scientific Session; March 28-30, 2026; New Orleans (hybrid meeting).
Reference:
Disclosures:
Juraschek reports no relevant financial disclosures.
Ask a clinical question and tap into Healio AI’s knowledge base.
- PubMed, enrolling/recruiting trials, guidelines
- Clinical Guidance, Healio CME, FDA news
- Healio’s exclusive daily news coverage of clinical data
