Editor's ChoiceMain Category: Diabetes
Also Included In: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness;??Sports Medicine / Fitness;??Public Health
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Imagine a society where over half its people, i.e. the majority of them, are diabetic or prediabetic. There is a good chance this will happen in the USA by 2020. The estimated $3.35 trillion cost over the coming ten years is massive. A study by The Center for Health Reform & Modernization of UnitedHealth Group, an insurance company, reveals that if the current pattern continues, those figures will be a reality within the next ten years. The report offers some suggestions which may slow things down, and perhaps even turn them round.
By 2020, diabetes and prediabetes will use up approximately 10% of health care spending, the authors estimate. The current annual health care bill of $194 billion will shoot up to nearly $500 billion.
UnitedHealth says it produced the report for November's National Diabetes Awareness month. Suggestions within it could save as much as $250 billion over the coming decade. Included are potential savings to the government in Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs of $144 billion.
It is vital that lifestyle interventions that address obesity and prevent prediabetes from developing into full blown diabetes are put into action. Medication programs to ensure proper diabetes control are also important.
Simon Stevens, executive vice president, UnitedHealth Group, and chairman of the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization, said: "Our new research shows there is a diabetes time bomb ticking in America, but fortunately there are practical steps that can be taken now to defuse it. What is now needed is concerted, national, multi-stakeholder action. Making a major impact on the prediabetes and diabetes epidemic will require health plans to engage consumers in new ways, while working to scale nationally some of the most promising preventive care models. Done right, the human and economic benefits for the nation could be substantial."Average healthcare costs in the USA for people without diabetes stand at approximately $4,400, compared to $11,700 for those with the disease. For diabetes patients with complications, the average annual cost rises to $20,700. Add to this the impact on work productivity and employer costs and the numbers increase considerably.
Diabetes rates in the USA are growing at such a rate that it is now "one of the fastest-growing diseases in the nation." 27 million Americans are known to have diabetes, and a further 67 million are thought to be prediabetic.
Diabetes Type 2 can sometimes have no symptoms at all. The same is the case with prediabetes. The percentage of babies born after the year 2000 who will probably have diabetes some time during their lives is extremely worrying. Diabetes significantly increases the risk of blindness, nerve damage, limb amputation, kidney disease, cancer, and heart disease.
The authors of the report explain the link between obesity and diabetes type 2 risk. Over two-thirds of US adults and 17% of children are overweight/obese. The report stresses that overweight/obesity rates are still rising, and consequently so are/will diabetes and prediabetes risk. The majority of American overweight/obese adults either have diabetes type 2 or prediabetes. The authors quote studies which have shown a doubling of type 2 diabetes risk when a person puts on 11-16 pounds of body weight. Those who gain 17 to 24 pounds triple their risk.Deneen Vojta, M.D., senior vice president of the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization, who helped develop UnitedHealth Group's Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance, said: "Because diabetes follows a progressive course, often starting with obesity and then moving to prediabetes, there are multiple opportunities to intervene early and prevent this devastating disease before it's too late."The report offers four solutions: Lifestyle intervention - public health initiatives and more extensive use of wellness programs could reduce diabetes/prediabetes human totals by up to ten million.Preventing prediabetes from becoming full blown diabetes - community-based intervention programs have been shown to reduce prediabetes rates, consequently lowering eventual diabetes rates.Medication and care compliance programs - to achieve better diabetes control. Well controlled diabetes significantly lowers the risk of complications. Another word for compliance is adherence (sticking to the treatment plan).Public-private partnerships for lifestyle intervention strategies - the authors explain that more extensive use of public-private partnerships to develop infrastructure would have a beneficial effect on prediabetes and diabetes rates."The United States of Diabetes: Challenges and Opportunities in the Decade Ahead" (PDF)
Source: UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization (UnitedHealth Group)
Written by Christian Nordqvist
Copyright: Medical News Today
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posted by robert on 23 Nov 2010 at 9:27 amHungry society is impossible to control. Hungry societies start revolutions. Fat society is sick but easily manageable.
Why should we care about the overweight ones anyway. They don't care even about themselves. Besides that, overweight people spend a lot of money for heal related issue and they don’t live long past their retirement dates. In the long run all that FAT may be good for US economy.
Robert Knyzewski
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posted by Eileen on 23 Nov 2010 at 9:39 am
By the time people are diagnosed with diabetes with a high fasting result, many of them have had elevated post prandial results for some time. If we truly want to prevent the complications of diabetes we need to start catching these people at an earlier point in the disease process. Using only fasting blood sugars to diagnose diabetes is like closing the barn door after the horse got out.
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posted by Wally Geez on 23 Nov 2010 at 10:27 am
This epidemic hasn't happened overnight. Instead of attacking the cause head-on, we are actually INCREASING protection to those with the wrong lifestyle. It is politically incorrect to make any criticism, in fact; "Obesity" is now being classified as a "medical condition", so it will receive all the protection afforded other medical conditions. If you can't even tell someone who is fat that they are fat and need to address it, how are we going to prevent this from happening? Read these articles well and prepare for the economic disaster that awaits us all. The healthy will be asked to subsidize the unhealthy, fair or not.
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posted by Troy Robertson on 23 Nov 2010 at 10:56 am
I kicked out periodic three digit fasting glucose readings for 17 years that were considered "normal" until two years ago. Two years ago the high limit was lowered from 126 Mg/Dl to 99 Mg/Dl. Result, more cases of Type 2 Diabetes being diagnosed. This year, my doctor declared me a Type 2 Diabetic based on a fasting glucose of 106, and an A1C of 5.9. It was my first A1C test, but only one of a number of three digit fasting glucose tests over the years, mixed with moderate to high double digit results. Is this an attempt at early intervention, or just an attempt to extract more dollars by the health care and drug companies? I don't know the answer to my question, but somtimes industry and government receive the answers they ask for, rather than correct answers to the right questions.
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posted by BB Prescott on 23 Nov 2010 at 11:20 am
Check the stats. Compare when Diabetes started snowballing and when the food industry succeeded in luring the American public into consuming massive amounts of sugar and carbs. ...Hmm. One in three of us are obese now? Soon one in two? ...How can that be?
The truth is, we're becoming known around the world as "The Fat Americans". Our unwholesome diet and sedentary lifestyle is crippling and killing us.
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posted by pedro mohr on 23 Nov 2010 at 6:03 pm
There is a cure but do not expect to get it from average MD as it is not recognized by AMA.It makes use off minerals like chromium not often considered.
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posted by lester figgler on 23 Nov 2010 at 6:36 pm
Amerika is destined to have a scooterized population of quivering lardbucket people freaks. Healthy people who care about themselves will be asked to work harder, maybe get a third job, forego sleep and sustenance so that the Tubby Tubas can keep shopping for Soda Pop and Krispy Kremes. It's a compassion and equality 'thang.
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posted by ellen on 24 Nov 2010 at 4:30 am
Look at all the food additives which people can't control....high fructose corn syrup....msg...aspartame. It's not on the label...then there are vaccinations which lead to allergies and immune disorders.
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