Posted on 05/03/2006 11:03:40 AM PDT by baldeagle390
Maybe we should have remained a colony.
Americans Sicker Than Britons?
Calvin Malone of Milwaukee says he runs four times per week to stay in shape. He was working out at the Downtown YMCA on Tuesday. Throughout the facility are signs encouraging patrons to exercise and embrace a healthy lifestyle. A report released today says middle-aged Britons are much healthier than their American counterparts.
Richard Nord, 71, from Shorewood, shown at the Downtown YMCA on Tuesday, says he has had a disciplined exercise routine since he was 40 years old. Despite paying more than twice as much for health care, Americans are less healthy than Britons, says a new study.
Disease Rates: Ages 55-64 Disease rates among 4,386 white Americans and 3,681 white Britons, ages 55-64.
U.S. 12.5% Have diabetes
15.1% Have heart disease
5.4% Have had heart attacks
9.5% Have had cancer
3.8% Have had strokes
8.1% Have had lung disease
Spend $5,274 in annual medical costs
U.K. 6.1% Have diabetes
9.6% Have heart disease
4.0% Have had heart attacks
5.5% Have had cancer
2.3% Have had strokes
6.3% Have had lung disease
Spend $2,164 in annual medical costs
Source: Journal of the American Medical Association GRAPHIC: More health comparisons between England and the U.S.
Compared with the British, white, middle-aged Americans are substantially less healthy, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Pick the disease - diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, lung disease, high blood pressure - and Americans are much more likely to have it than their counterparts on the other side of the pond.
"Americans are much sicker than the English," the study concluded.
Adding insult to injury, Americans pay more than twice as much for their medical care as the Brits, $5,274 a year per person in the U.S. vs. $2,164 in England, the study notes.
Doctors not associated with the study say it is the latest evidence of befuddling health disparities in the U.S. compared with other industrialized countries. It also dispels the often-cited erroneous claim that America has the best health care in the world, doctors said.
"In some cases, the wealthiest Americans were sicker than England's poorest," said Julie Mitchell, an assistant professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin who practices at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital. "That's crazy."
Indeed, when the researchers divided people from the two countries by both education and income levels, Americans with higher incomes and who were more educated often had higher rates of ailments such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease than English who were in the bottom strata.
The study looked at health data and self-reported disease rates among 4,386 Americans aged 55 to 64 and 3,681 Brits in the same age range. To eliminate the confounding issue of race and health status, only non-Hispanic whites were included in the analysis.
The data came from government-funded health surveys in the two countries. The study was sponsored by the governments of the two countries.
Overall, the diabetes rate was 6.1% in England vs. 12.5% in the U.S. The cancer rate was 5.5% in England, compared with 9.5% in the U.S. The heart disease rate was 9.6% in England, compared with 15.1% in the U.S.
Attempts to compare illnesses The study is one of the few attempts to compare illness rates in the U.S. and England while doing so for people with comparable social status, said co-author Michael Marmot, a physician and epidemiologist at University College London.
Marmot said that it has been known for years that life expectancy is shorter in the U.S. than in the United Kingdom. More than 20 countries have greater life expectancy than the U.S. Now there is evidence that disease rates also are higher, he said.
"And they are higher for people of high education, intermediate education and low education," he said.
The disparity remained even after researchers adjusted for various risk factors such as smoking and obesity.
Obesity is much more common in the U.S., while heavy drinking is more prevalent in England. Smoking rates in the two countries are about the same.
Doctors said the differing illness rates likely are the result of a variety of factors.
Even though much more money is spent on health care in the U.S., the emphasis is different.
In England, much more attention is paid on primary care and making sure everyone gets basic medical care.
"You get to the problems earlier," said Barbara Starfield, a distinguished professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University. "They are much better with children, also."
She noted that health care in the U.K. itself is not the best in the industrialized world. So, for the U.S. to have higher disease rates than England supports other research showing that American health care ranks well below many other industrialized countries.
Is our strategy working? The study suggests that the U.S. is not using its health care dollars to the greatest benefit, said Andrew Bindman, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco who has studied the health care systems of the two countries.
"Is our strategy of innovation, technology and specialization getting us the return on investment?" said Bindman, who was not a part of the study.
Bindman also said lower rates of exercise in the U.S. and a propensity for eating processed junk food here also may explain some of the higher U.S. disease rates.
To bolster their findings, the researchers used a separate database of biological markers of disease among more than 7,600 white people aged 40 to 70 from the two countries.
Once again, they found a troubling pattern in the U.S. For instance, there were higher levels of inflammatory substances such as C-reactive protein and lower levels of HDL cholesterol (the good kind) in Americans.
The study's authors did not identify the causes of health disparities between the two countries.
However, they suggested it might be related to stress from the circumstances under which people live and work in the two countries.
Some of it may be due to the effects of social rank and status, they added.
Whatever the causes, doctors said, the U.S. health care system needs to devote a lot more attention to the issue.
"We need to figure this out because it's making us sick," Mitchell said.
I took a look at life expectancy in Britain and in the U.S. - they have about 78.5 years (average for both sexes with females longer lived) and we have 77.6 years.
All Hispanics were excluded.
If it is environmental, then which country governs would not make much difference.
The article is discussing rates, not counts.
If we eat richer foods, it stands to reason that we are probably not as healthy.
Then again - when you are comparing 60 million people to 300 million people, you can't get a true comparison.
If you're twice as sick, it will cost twice as much.
Just pointing out the obvious, but many towns in the UK have buildings and services close together. People tend to walk to a location rather than drive. In the United States, unless you live in NYC or Chicago, locations are spread out and few cities have good public transit. You tend to drive to the place you are going to. If the stats are to be believed, I would speculate that health in the UK has to be lifestyle related because there is no way its diet related. Their food is still high in sugar and saturated fats. Clotted cream anyone?
It should be remembered that these figures are for people THAT ARE STILL ALIVE.
If you don't survive your stroke, or cancer, or diabetes, you don't end up part of the survey.
The study might then be implying the very opposite of what the author of the article believes. It may be that twice as many Americans are surviving these diseases as Britons.
That isn't the question they were answering.
Besides, the finer and finer granularity you propose leads to a reductio ad absurdum fallacy where, taken to the extreme, you are comparing individuals, not groups.
It's all that healthy food Britian is famous for: bangers & mash; fish & chips; beans on toast; steak & kidney pie -- to say nothing of spam.
Monty Python did though:
Man: Morning!
Waitress: Morning!
Man: Well, what've you got?
Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam;
Vikings: Spam spam spam spam...
Waitress: ...spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam...
Jellied Eels, Kidney Pie anyone?
compare individuals, not groups
what a great idea
Not all illegals are Hispanic (just most of them).
One explanation -
US people are more prone to get diagnosed earlier with all these problems, because a much higher rate of testing in the US - as an example, adult-onset diabetes is one of those things that typically comes out in a test battery than through symptoms.
And if you're past a certain age, certain medications/treatments are no longer paid for, such as insulin for 90-year old grandparents.
I am very suspect of these stats, and wonder just how much the NEGATIVE impact of socialized medicine has on these "good" morbidity figures. For example, notice they do not include mortality rates. Perhaps people are dying sooner of certain chronic illnesses BECAUSE the focus is on primary prevention, and NOT on caring for those with the chronic illnesses listed, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. If so, then those people could not be "counted" in the disease categories because they no longer exist.
(I need to remember to read all the posts before I weigh in!!)
That wouldn't be the answer because these figures have been converted into percentages.
True, but What about Harry Ramsdens fish & chips? that makes up for some of Britannias culinary missteps. And with a pint of good british (or Irish) ale, nothing better.
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