Friday, June 26, 2009


Wow, I can't let this article go without comment. It comes from the AP, and was in the Berkshire Eagle on Wednesday. It's called "Disease Prevention Often Costs More Than It Saves". The first couple of paragraphs says it all.



By CARLA K. JOHNSON AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO (AP) -- When it comes to health care spending, an ounce of prevention is seldom worth a pound of cure. Take Mrs. Jones, a hypothetical 55-year-old obese woman at risk for diabetes. It costs $900 a year to hire a personal lifestyle coach to help her lose weight and prevent diabetes. Suppose that the coaching works for Mrs. Jones, and she is spared diabetes and all the resulting health bills.
But research shows that for every person like Mrs. Jones, six other people just like her get nothing out of such a program. They either don't lose weight or get diabetes anyway or wouldn't have developed it in the first place. The yearly cost of the prevention program for those six people: $5,400.
That's probably more than Mrs. Jones' health bills from diabetes would have amounted to.

...Right off the bat, this article doesn't make any logical sense. First of all, since when did any medication, CURE diabetes? Someone should inform the American Diabetes Association that there's been a pharmaceutical cure for diabetes! I think it would be news to them. Secondly, When, in this world, will everybody pre-diabetic be assigned a life-style coach? I don't know what planet this writer is from, but I can tell you, it's not this one. I tell you what though, if that were true, life style coaches would be the hot new industry to get in to, as there are about 24 million Americans with diabetes. And, if Mrs. Jones spends her own money on a life style coach, that would sound to me as if she were taking some responsibility for saving her own life.

Also, why would somebody put a price tag on good health? That's the big question here! Sure, you can add up all sorts of costs like a membership to a gym, running shoes, water bottles, organic foods, anything you want. But no matter what you spend on your health, it is far "cheaper" than poor health, and a life on medications.

If the "Doctor" from this article doesn't know that, she should take a quote from The Six Finger Man from "The Princess Bride": "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything".








1 comment:

Running Raw said...

I think that if Mrs. Jones was living a truly preventative lifestyle she would not have become obese in the first place... This woman is most certainly missing the point of prevention.