Older Americans less healthy than their European counterparts…duh

Costly diseases, many of them related to obesity and smoking, are moreprevalent among aging Americans than their European peers and add asmuch as $100 billion to $150 billion a year in treatment costs to theU.S. healthcare tab, a new study says.  The study by researchers at Emory University’s Rollins School of PublicHealth found higher rates of several serious diseases — includingcancer, diabetes and heart disease — among Americans 50 and older ascompared with aging Europeans.  For example, heart disease was diagnosedin nearly twice as many Americans as Europeans 50 and older. More than16% of American seniors had diagnosed diabetes, compared with about 11%of their European peers. And arthritis and cancer were more than twiceas common among Americans as Europeans.

The study published on the Web todayby the journal Health Affairs found that Americans were nearly twice aslikely as Europeans to be obese (33.1% versus 17.1%), and they alsowere more likely to be current or former smokers (53% versus 43%).  “We expected to see differences between disease prevalence in theUnited States and Europe, but the extent of the differences issurprising,” said lead author Kenneth Thorpe, a public health professorat Emory and former deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services.

Source/more:  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-healthspend2oct02,0,7898945.story?coll=la-home-center