New Delhi: Preventing smoking, campaigning against obesity and fighting cancer may be the right thing to do, but while this may save lives, it certainly does not save money.
A study by Dutch researchers claims that the healthiest people cost the taxpayer more than the others over their respective lifetimes.
In a paper published online on Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.
While smokers and the overweight are often criticised for the financial impact of their unhealthy lifestyles, an obese person's medical bills actually average 10 per cent less overall than those of a person of normal weight and smokers require even less treatment.
The reason for this, says the study, is the fact that healthy people live longer and may develop long-term diseases in old age like Alzheimer's which are very expensive to treat.
As a result, any savings made by them being healthy when young are more than offset by their being ill in old age.
On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and obese people lived about 80 years. Smokers and obese people tended to have more heart disease than the healthy people.
Cancer incidence, except for lung cancer, was the same in all three groups. Obese people had the most diabetes, and healthy people had the most strokes. Ultimately, the thin and healthy group cost the most, about US$417,000, from age 20 onward.
The cost of care for obese people was US$371,000, and for smokers, about US$326,000.
The results counter the common perception that preventing obesity will save health systems worldwide millions of dollars.
A Word Of Caution
However, Prof Klim McPherson of Oxford University cautioned that the research should not used as an excuse not to tackle rising levels of obesity.
He asked,''Is it worth knowing obese individuals are cheaper than lean ones for the health sector in the long run?''
The Dutch experts admitted that the effects of obesity and smoking stretched further than the health system, the Daily Mail reported.
''We have focused solely on healthcare costs, ignoring broader cost categories and the consequences of these risk factors to society,'' they were quoted by agencies as saying.
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