Recent studies found that the US
spends more than 100 billion dollars on annual healthcare clearly showing that
their unhealthy lifestyle has caught up with them. Compared to Europeans,
Americans are more likely to seek treatment either for obesity or smoking
problems or even both complications.
According to researchers at Emory University in Atlanta and
a study published today on the Web site of the journal Health Affairs America
is slightly under the radar when it comes to health issues, being worse than 10
western European nations in the prevalence of heart disease, high blood
pressure, arthritis and excess weight among people more than 50 years old.
Health policy makers can't rein in medical costs in the U.S.
unless they reverse obesity trends, said lead researcher Kenneth Thorpe, an
Emory professor of health policy. Only multiple approaches to encourage better
nutrition, such as new tax, marketing and farm policies, will work, he said.
Health-care spending on each person in the U.S.
was $6,037, the highest in the world and 50 percent higher than Switzerland's
$4,045, the most in Europe, the report said.
Thorpe studied data from Austria,
Denmark, France,
Germany, Greece,
Italy, the Netherlands,
Spain, Sweden
and Switzerland
for 2004, the latest year for which comparative data was available. The lowest
spending was Spain's
$2,099, 35 percent of the U.S.
medical bill.
Life expectancy in the U.S.
to a child born in 2005 was 77.9 years, according to the World Health Organization.
Longevity in Europe ranges from 79.2 years in the Netherlands
to 81.4 years in Switzerland,
WHO said.
The Emory study compared prevalence and treatment rates for
chronic conditions including high cholesterol, cancer, diabetes, lung diseases,
arthritis and osteoporosis.
The biggest gap was for arthritis. In the U.S.,
54 percent of patients older than 50 are diagnosed with the painful joint
disease, compared with 21 percent in Europe. Arthritis
can be caused by obesity, according to the study.
The only chronic illness diagnosed more frequently in Europe
was osteoporosis, a weakening of bones that leads to increasing fractures.
Doctors diagnosed it in 7.8 percent of Europeans and 5 percent of Americans.
If Americans older than 50 were diagnosed and treated at the
lower European rates for those conditions, average health- care spending per
person in the U.S.
would drop by $1,195 to $1,750 a year, Thorpe said.
A separate study released today by the Milken Institute
found that $1.1 trillion is lost in the U.S. annually because workers with
chronic conditions take sick days or don't perform as well when they come to
work ill.
