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Diabetes Costs Billions in Lost Productivity

More Than $133 Billion Lost to Diabetes by 2000, Study Shows

By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD
Nov. 16, 2004

Diabetes costs the U.S. at least $7.3 billion per year in lost productivity, according to a new study from the University of Michigan and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The grand total of productivity loss from diabetes for adults born from 1931 to 1941 was more than $133 billion by the year 2000, say the researchers, who included Sandeep Vijan, MD, MS, of the University of Michigan.

The price tag for diabetes-related disability, sick days, and lost income could be even higher, since the study only focused on one generation of adults.

Vijan and colleagues based their numbers on data from the Health and Retirement Study, a long-term, national research project funded by the National Institute on Aging.

Calling the economic impact of diabetes "staggering," the researchers say the problem is likely to worsen due to "epidemic" numbers of young people with diabetes.

America already has an estimated 16-17 million people with diabetes, say the researchers, citing 2002 statistics from the CDC.

"This study is a stark reminder of the huge financial burden diabetes places on patients, their families, and society," says U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in a news release.

High Diabetes Costs Tied to Related Problems

Many of diabetes' costs "are largely related to the disability resulting from complications of the disease, rather than to the disease itself," write the researchers in the December issue of the journal Health Services Research.

For instance, rates of coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, stroke, visual impairment, kidney/bladder problems, foot problems, and high blood pressure were all higher among people with diabetes than those without diabetes.

More than 17% of participants with diabetes had coronary artery disease, compared with 7.4% without diabetes. Congestive heart failure was present in 6% of participants with diabetes and only 1.5% of those without diabetes. Likewise, stroke affected 6% of participants with diabetes and almost 3% of those without diabetes.

Since many diabetes complications are preventable, the researchers call for public health efforts and workplace programs to help reverse the trend.

SOURCES: Vijan, S. Health Services Research, December 2004; vol 39: pp 1653-1669. News release, University of Michigan.

And of course, to reverse this trend, the advice is:

'Make starches the star! Up to 60% of your calories should come from starches and grains. Yes, these will raise your blood sugar faster than any other food. But your doctor can give you more medications for that."

Believe it or not, that's what you'll find on the American Diabetes Association web site. Verbatim.

K Walt, I thought you were kidding but here's the link: http://www.diabetes.org/nutrition-a...on/starches.jsp
I don't think it's exactly what you were looking at, but it's pretty close to saying the same thing. Scary.

Yeah that was it, more or less.

And note. . . they say you should TRY to keep your post-prandial glucose at about 180 or so. . . TRY. Which is about all you can do if you "eat more starches!"

Yipe. They consider 180 as GOOD.

Scary indeed.

Oh my gosh, I thought that was a joke, too, but... that article made my chin drop! I can't believe I just read that.

That makes me so angry. The ADA is supposed to be helping diabetics, not the pharmaceutical industry.

Thanks K Walt, this opened my eyes once again to the insanity of the ADA and the whole nutritional extablishment...

It really is kinda like George Orwell's «doubletalk» in 1984, where you can say 2 contradictory things at the same time and believe the 2 of them.

Then they tell you why starches are healthy:
«Starches are good for you because they have very little fat, saturated fat, or cholesterol»...
They may not contain any of these, but what they DO contain (concentrated carbohydrate) will do far more short and long-term damage to the health of any diabetic (or non-diabetic) than any amount of their hated fat, saturated fat and cholesterol.
My head still spins after reading this.

This is absolutely correct. My g/f owns home health care agencies, and her 2 biggest money makers are Diabetes, and people that went thru the Gastric Bypass operations, and all the complications associated with this operation.

In the film Supersize me, we are shown a patient about to undergo Gastric Bypass. He is very overweight. He confesses that he was drinking over 1 gallon of pop every day. That he is diabetic should come as a surprise to no one.

Yet the doctor almost proudly declares that gastric bypass is the only procedure known to cure diabetes. The emphasis is mine. It's obvious to us why this procedure "cures" diabetes. But most people listening to this will automatically assume that gastric bypass is the only cure.

The whole medical and pharmaceutical approach to diabetes, more than anything else, has made me completely disillusioned with the health industry. It has opened my eyes to the fact that we are brazenly lied to. If they can be this wrong, if they can so stubbornly close their eyes to reality, what else are they getting wrong? It's really scary.

Wow.
Anyone should be able to read between the lines there...

"Eat the foods that require lots of medication... profits above health!"

I'm at the point where I now realize healthcare is just as much a money making scam as any television channel or magazine. The goal is product pushing and placement... buy buy buy. They convince you that you have diseases that aren't real, or that can be treated by lifestyle changes. They convince you the only way to get rid of your "diseases" is with drugs and surgeries. They damn well know the truth. Just like television they spin a false reality to get us to consume their products.

You know I went to my doctors office the other day. I was really shocked. the tissue boxes has pharmaceutical adds on them. In fact, several items int he office were clearly "gifts" from pharm companies. In the few minutes while I was waiting, a pharmaceutical rep came, dressed up nice and proper in his suit just like a door to door salesmen. He opened his briefcase of drugs, and was clearly trying to set something up with the receptionists to court the doctors.

My experiences with the doctor weren't much better. As a whole, every doctor I speak with seems concerned only with treating the symptoms one may have at the moment. Actually helping people achieve maximum well being is pretty much unheard of.
Just to give you an example, I went to see my doctor about the fact I haven't had a period in months. I also asked for a complete blood work. I did mention to him that I had recently lost 150 lbs and this was the reason I was concerned about my health. I told him I suspect I have PCOS (and I'm quite certain I used to when I was really heavy and eating carbs) so the period thing might be related to that.
I was told the results were normal, and was given a referral to get my ovaries checked for cysts or abnormalities.
Since I don't trust doctors, I looked at my results myself. Then I saw my LH (luteinizing hormone = stimulates the ovaries to produce sex hormones and implies reproductive health) was only 2.1 and well below the FSH. In a healthy young woman LH and FSH should be about equal. In PCOS, LH is at least 2 times higher than the FSH. PCOS Is marked by the body overproducing sex hormones and in an incorrect balance, causing infertility and all other symptoms (most often because one is eating too many carbs and the high insulin is creating a disaster of the endocrine system).

When LH is low like that and periods are missing, you don't have PCOS. There are two main causes of this. The least common of which is hypopituitarism (pituitary isn't functioning, and isn't releasing enough of the hormones to stimulate the ovaries, or thyroid, or whatever).
The much more common cause of low LH is physiological stress and malnutrition (e.g. eating a poor, low energy diet). It commonly happens to anorexics and athletes.

Seeing as I have just lost 150 lbs rather quickly and was eating very small amounts of food for months, I think it's obvious why my hormones are so messed up. The stress of creating such large caloric deficits to produce the rapid massive weight loss led my body to shut off reproduction.

That my doctor would just say the results are "normal" and not even bother to tell me that the weight loss, not a return of PCOS, is probably why my periods stopped says volumes about why I think what I do of doctors. Every experience with every doctor I've ever had has gone over similarly to that.

From the time I saw that endocrinologist at 18 with complete amenorrhea and "high testosterone" (with obvious PCOS and carbohydrate insensitivity BTW, a classic case)... and was stupidly advised to "just lose weight" (no mention was made of the role of insulin and diet) and take birth control to cover up the symptoms...
To now, when presenting with massive weight loss and secondary amenorrhea and blood tests which link the two...and somehow the doctor didn't care enough to inform me of the connection, or was too ignorant to see it himself.

I've never had a good experience with a doctor or any health care professional. Every positive change I've had in my health has been because I took my symptoms and lab reports into my own hands and did my own research. Doctors are nothing but pill dispensers who treat symptoms. The only use they have is to serve as access to get the tests that the patient can use to make intelligent health & lifestyle choices.

The cost of diabetes can be calculated many ways. From the CDC website:

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/aag/aag_ddt.htm

“The average yearly health care cost for a person with diabetes was $13,243 in 2002, compared with $2,560 for a person without diabetes. … Each year, 12,000–24,000 people in this country become blind because of diabetic eye disease. … About 42,813 people with diabetes develop kidney failure each year, and over 100,000 are treated for this condition. … About 82,000 people have diabetes-related leg, foot, or toe amputations each year. ”


Some simple arithmetic; $13,243 – $2,560 = $10,683 excess cost from diabetes X 16,000,000 diabetics = $170,928,000,000. Or 171 BILLION dollars.

This does not factor any other human costs, such as spending the rest of your life in a wheel chair, or blind, or both.

That the solution to this tragic situation is suppressed for the economic benefit of a few is criminal.

Me too, same story. Sad. I'd probably be diagnosed as one of those diabetics by now too if I hadn't started cutting carbs when I did.