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MONDAY, June 9, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Baby boomers who start eating a healthy diet now can save themselves health-care costs when they're older, says a new study.
The study examined eating behavior at midlife and found that switching to a diet high in fruits and vegetables at that stage in life translates into lower health-care costs during old age.
Previous studies have found that starting to eat a healthy diet and reducing risk factors such a smoking and lack of exercise early in life helps protect against long-term risk of death from coronary heart disease, cancer and stroke.
But few of those studies have examined the economic effects.
"To our knowledge, no other study has linked eating patterns to health-care cost," lead researcher Dr. Martha L. Daviglus, an associate professor at Northwestern University's department of preventive medicine, said in a statement. The research was presented in Honolulu Monday at the American Heart Association's Second Asia Pacific Scientific Forum.
She and her colleagues evaluated 1,070 men who worked at the Chicago
Western Electric Company in 1957-58 and were 40 to 55 years old at the time. All of them were free of heart disease at baseline examination.
The researchers then examined Medicare health costs (adjusted to the year 2000 dollars) for the men more than 25 years later.
The men were classified into three groups based on their fruit and vegetable consumption in 1959: low, less than 14 cups per month; middle, 14 to 42 cups per month; high, more than 42 cups per month.
The 237 men in the high group had the lowest total annual Medicare charges ($11,416) and the lowest charges related to coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease. The 290 men in the low group had annual Medicare charges of $14,655. The 543 men in the middle group had annual charges of $12,622.
"These associations were not influenced by cardiovascular risk factors such as age, obesity, blood cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking, or by other dietary factors. Our findings suggest that high intake of fruits and vegetables -- which may reflect healthy eating habits in middle age -- have a beneficial impact not only on future health but also on health-care costs in older people," Daviglus said.
She added that the findings also support current dietary guidelines, which recommend that people eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day. That's much higher than what's included in the average American diet.
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