Paying to Prevent Diabetes
Posted on: Thursday, 8 June 2006, 15:00 CDT
With about one-third of the U.S. adult population pre-diabetic, a study suggests it would be cost effective to pay for diabetes prevention at age 50.
The study, published in the journal Diabetes Care, says diabetes prevention at age 50 would be more cost effective than treating people at age 65 when they are eligible for Medicare, but many have already developed the disease.
Diabetes is growing with the increasing rate of obesity and has reached epidemic proportions in this country, says first author Dr. Ronald Ackermann of the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Cost-sharing strategies to offer lifestyle interventions to help individuals between the ages of 50 and 64 keep their weight down and to develop realistic individualized exercise programs would be a win-win situation for both pre-diabetic patients and for the private and governmental funders of their healthcare.
Sharing the costs of efforts to help the huge number of pre-diabetics in their 50s and early 60s alter their lifestyles would not cost private insurance companies or Medicare more than they would eventually have to pay for treatment for the large number of pre-diabetics who will develop diabetes after age 65 if no preventive treatment is supported, according to Ackermann.
Source: United Press International
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