Mmmmm-health: Appetizing human health solutions that boost behavior change

I've been reading with great interest all the ways that m-health (mobile-phone health technology) is being put to use, in the words of m-health innovator Ashifi Gogo, as an "efficiency multiplier" to improve human health and health care. Much emphasis has been placed on its attributes as a health care reminder: ensuring you take your HIV meds on time, for example.

Now a small study in Preventive Medicine has unearthed the potential for an m-health initiative to attain the equivalent of the holy grail for preventive health care: achieve behavior change. And not just any old behavior, it actually made people eat healthier, at least for the duration of the study. After finding 96 people who ate fewer than 5.5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day, researchers created three roughly equivalent groups. Group 1 received written instructions about eating healthy and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. Group 2 received the same, plus forms to create an actual daily food plan. Group 3 received all of the above, plus three telephone counseling sessions with a registered dietitian.  At the end of 12 weeks there was no change in dietary patterns of groups 1 and 2, but group 3 had doubled its intake of fruits and vegetables (a statistically significant result, despite the small sample size.) Moreover, blood tests showed that group 3ers had increased their blood-carotenoid levels by 20% (carotenoids are potentially disease-fighting substances found in fruits and vegetables. Increasing the amount in your blood stream through diet is one way of assessing whether all those extra greens, yellows and reds are actually contributing to your health.) And to top it off, members of group 3 actually lost weight, unlike the other two groups.

Though small and short term, there are a couple of common sense reasons to look favorably on these results. As the authors point out, and most of us are already aware of, people don't necessarily change their behavior from education alone. Sometimes they need some counseling support, clarification, or simply time with a knowledgeable resource. Even if the behavior changes don't prove to be durable beyond the length of the study, telephone counseling is a rather inexpensive, easy method of providing support, and could conceivably be provided for longer periods of time. Perhaps future research could investigate whether there is a minimum amount of time that counseling is needed to make the behavior permanent, or whether some form of automated (pre-recorded) support has utility. In the meantime, here's to more evidence of the promises of m-health: How a few phone calls a year might end up providing significant boost to human health.