Testing of a Culinary Medicine Intervention for Racially/Ethnically Diverse Adults With Type 2 Diabetes.

Objective: Assess if a virtual culinary medicine program improves healthy eating, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and associated variables among adults with type 2 diabetes.

Design: Mixed-methods, intervention-only pilot study.

Setting: Classes via video conferencing from the teaching kitchen, with participants cooking from their homes.

Participants: One hundred and four patients from a Texas primary care system.

Interventions: Five-session program (Spanish and English) led by a dietitian.

Main outcome measures: HbA1c. Secondary outcomes included MyPlate knowledge, self-efficacy, healthy eating and cooking behaviors, diabetes self-management, perceived health, and blood pressure.

Analysis: Multilevel mixed-effects regression to analyze changes at pretreatment, posttreatment, and 6-month follow-up. Framework analysis to analyze postintervention interviews.

Results: Participants with complete posttest data (n = 61) demonstrated statistically significant (P <0.05) improvements in MyPlate knowledge, cooking self-efficacy, servings of fruits and vegetables, frequency of healthy food intake, shopping, cooking and eating behaviors, diabetes self-management, and perceived health, compared with pretest. HbA1c levels showed statistically significant reductions from pretest to posttest (P = 0.02) and at 6-month follow-up (P <0.001). Participants reported high satisfaction and sustained new habits.

Conclusions and implications: We saw improvements in healthy eating and cooking behaviors and HbA1c. While further rigorous testing is needed, this program could be incorporated into clinical practices as a brief intervention for patients with type 2 diabetes.