One in Four Americans Obese
One in four Americans is now obese, says the CDC. While it’s less than welcome news, you can hardly say it’s surprising – we’ve been growing fatter as a nation for decades.
That dead weight is sure to hamper our healthcare system and the economy as a whole, but its boom time for device makers so disposed. In the U.S., doctors perform 140,000 gastric bypass surgeries each year.
24 million Americans have diabetes, an increase of 3 million people in just two years, according to the CDC – that’s 8 percent of the U.S. population. 25 percent of Americans 60 and up live with the condition and 57 million people are thought to have pre-diabetes.
According to the American Diabetes Association, in 2007, medical expenditures for diabetes was an estimated $116 billion: $27 billion for diabetes care, $58 billion for chronic diabetes-related complications, and $31 billion for excess general medical costs.
With escalating diabesity-related costs on the mind, Insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has offered a $700,000 annual grant to study the safety of bariatric surgery. As an incentive to participate, Blue Cross gave as much as $200,000 a year in additional reimbursements to hospitals.
About 1% of patients who are candidates for gastric bypass surgery actually have the procedure. Mortality risk has been cited a major deterrent to broader use.
By region, the prevalence of obesity was higher in the South (27.3%) and Midwest (26.5%). Obesity prevalence was >30% in three states: Alabama (30.3%), Mississippi (32.0%), and Tennessee (30.1%). I blame air conditioning.
One Response to “One in Four Americans Obese”
1 America’s Obesity Epidemic Is Taking A Tremendous Financial Toll | Weight Loss Surgery Blog by TexasBariatric.com 11 August 2008 @ 4:41 pm
[…] Research shows that nationwide, doctors perform 140,000 gastric bypass surgeries each year. Nevertheless, only about 1% of the candidates for gastric bypass surgery actually undergo the procedure, most likely due to the risk of mortality involved. In addition, different regions of the country have higher obesity rates, with the South and the Midwest experiencing rates of 27.3% and 26.5%, respectively. Specifically, three states had obesity prevalence rates higher than 30%: Alabama (30.3%), Mississippi (32.0%), and Tennessee (30.1%). […]
Leave a Reply