If older Americans lost 10 percent of their weight, Medicare would save $8 billion over the next decade and $35 billion over their lifetime, new research suggests.
According to researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, Medicare could save billions if it funded weight-loss programs for overweight adults between the ages of 60 and 64.
There has been a drastic increase in obesity in the United States in past two decades. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans spend nearly $147 billion per year in direct medical costs for weight-related chronic illness.
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The government's current approaches to weight loss aren't addressing the present obesity epidemic that is responsible for the rising rates of diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia, explains researcher Kenneth Thorpe says.
Many overweight and obese adults are pre-diabetic (which occurs when blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes), have hypertension or high cholesterol. These people face a higher risk of suffering from heart disease in the future.
"Medical treatments producing a 10 percent weight loss in patients with existing co-morbidities could be extremely useful in generating Medicare savings in the billions," Thorpe says. "Obesity is a national epidemic with few useful treatment options. I am hopeful that new therapies will continue to be developed at a time when members of Congress are looking for Medicare spend reductions with aging baby boomers."
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