DOC News February 1, 2005
Volume 2 Number 2 p. 21
© 2005 American Diabetes Association
The Price of Obesity
Overweight men spend more on prescription drugs
Bruce Goldfarb
Obese men spend nearly four times as much on prescription medication than
their normal-weight cohorts—a difference amounting to almost $700 a
year—even in the absence of known serious disease, according to a study
presented at the November 2004 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions
in New Orleans.
Researchers at Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn., reported results of a
study involving 328 men, with an average age of 47 years, undergoing
comprehensive physical examination for a health-screening program.
Participants were categorized according to body mass index (BMI) as normal
weight, overweight, and obese. Fifteen percent of the men studied were normal
weight, 52% were overweight, and 32% were obese. Those with known
cardiovascular or serious non-cardiac disease were excluded from the
analysis.
Prescription costs for the 52 normal-weight men averaged $22.84 per month,
while the 172 overweight participants spent an average of $38.27, and the 104
obese men plunked down an average of $80.31 per month. Over the course of a
year, obese men paid nearly $700 more than those of normal weight.
"These are real and immediate costs," says Thomas G. Allison,
PhD, MPH, lead author of the study and a consultant in internal medicine and
cardiovascular disease at the Mayo Clinic. "These are not the costs
associated with an operation or serious event like heart attack, but what the
men or their employer
spend."
Allison says that he and his colleagues were surprised by the impact of
health problems associated with overweight and obesity and disease. "We
did not expect to see such significant health problems so strongly associated
with weight, including degenerative joint disease, depression, sleep apnea,
high blood pressure, and high blood cholesterol," he says.
All major coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors except smoking
increased as BMI class increased, according to researchers. The prevalence of
low back pain, degenerative joint disease, erectile dysfunction, sleep apnea,
gastroesophageal reflux, depression, and gout increased in proportion to
BMI.
Pharmacy costs were subdivided into drugs to treat CHD risk factors and
those for other medical conditions related to weight. For normal-weight men,
prescriptions for CHD risk factors cost $9.89 per month, and those for other
medical conditions cost $12.96 per month. For overweight men, CHD-related
prescriptions cost $18.41 per month and other prescriptions $20.86. For obese
men, CHD-related drugs cost $42.02 per month and other drugs were $38.29.
The study subjects were all business executives who had been sent by their
employers to have physical examinations at Mayo Clinic's intensive Executive
Physical program, which includes a cardiovascular disease risk assessment.
Allison says that companies should make note of these prescription drug
costs and invest in programs to reduce obesity in the workplace. In addition,
this information also can be used by clinicians as further incentive for obese
patients. 
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