Improving Nutrition to Turn the Tide on Diet-Related Chronic Disease

March is National Nutrition Month, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is shining a spotlight on the importance of good nutrition and the big impact it has on improving people’s lives and lowering the enormous costs of diet-related chronic diseases. Each year, more than a million Americans die from diet-related diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain forms of cancers. In 2020 alone, an estimated 800,000 people died from cardiovascular disease, an even greater number than the horrific toll of COVID-19 during that same year. And obesity, which is both a disease and a condition that increases the risk for other diet-related chronic diseases, has increased to historic levels in children and adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.