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Americans Less Healthy than Europeans
Americans aged 50 or more are more likely to have serious diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer than similar aged Europeans. Many of these costly diseases are related to obesity and smoking and require $100-$150 billions dollars to treat, says a study published by researchers at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. These diseases occur nearly twice as often in Americans as in Europeans.
Over 16% of American seniors are diagnosed with diabetes compared with 11% of those in Europe. And twice as many are likely to be obese. "We expected to see differences between disease prevalence in the United States and Europe, but the extent of the differences is surprising," said lead author Kenneth Thorpe, a public health professor at Emory. Thorpe suggests that "we spend more on healthcare because we are, indeed, less healthy."
The study compared U.S. seniors aged 50 or more with their European counterparts in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.