Food vs Medicine
Should diet changes come before prescriptions?
Everything is wrong:
○ 70% of Americans are on prescription drugs
■ 69% Percent of adults are overweight or obese
■ 31% of adults have high blood pressure
■ 33.5% of adults have high LDL or “bad” cholesterol
Everything being wrong is expensive:
■ Costs of obesity-related illness: $190.2 billion/yr
● 21% of annual medical spending in the United States
● Price tag for childhood obesity: $19,000 per kid
● If current trends continue obesity spending will quadruple to $344 billion by 2018
■ Costs of High blood pressure: $47.5 billion/yr
● Reducing sodium intake from 3,400mg to 2,300mg per day may reduce cases of high blood pressure by 11 million and save 18 billion/yr
■ Costs of cholesterol medications: $18.7 billion/yr
● High cholesterol is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and specifically for coronary heart disease (CHD).
● Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S
Healthcare costs are high because pills are expensive:
■ The United States spends far more per capita on medicines than other developed countries
■ Drugs account for 10 percent of the country’s $2.7 trillion annual health bill
● Should simple diet changes comes before prescriptions?
○ A vegetarian diet can reduce blood pressure by about half the drop expected from medication
○ Eating vegetarian is cheaper than buying pills
■ Plus you get the beneficial side effects of:
● Lower cholesterol
● Weight loss
○
The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) eating plan to lower blood pressure by up to 10 points:
■ Keep fat intake under 27% of total calories
■ Eat many servings of fruits and vegetables
■ Choose whole instead of processed grains
■ Include low-fat or nonfat dairy products
■ Should you eat meat, choose small portions of poultry or fish as your primary source of protein
■ Make nuts a source of protein
Sources:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-shows-70-percent-of-americans-take-prescription-drugs/
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/cholesterol/facts.htm
https://www.fightchronicdisease.org/latest-news/new-data-shows-obesity-costs-will-grow-344-billion-2018
http://www.healthycommunitieshealthyfuture.org/learn-the-facts/economic-costs-of-obesity/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/07/childhood-obesity-costs/7298461/
http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/limitations.html
http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/diet-can-lower-blood-pressure-as-much-as-taking-a-medication
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/vegetarians-and-their-superior-blood/284036/
