Researchers in the UK have found that the cost for diabetes care is “out of control” and that the National Health Service (the overseeing agency for health care in the UK……the one touted as “the model for public health) is spending 7% of its’ TOTAL prescribing budget on diabetes medications.
In an article from BBC News, researchers say the major jump in diabetics does not fully account for the 50% increase in spending on diabetic control medications form 2000 to 2008. They point to the lack of lifestyle changes prior to prescribing these meds as the single biggest reason for it. The researchers said in recent years the new expensive treatments had been aggressively marketed by drugs companies. Sound familiar from somewhere?
Diabetes is on the rise worldwide and has become epidemic in proportion here in the US. Even in the the system that has been touted as the “model” for government health care, use of medications for treatment before lifestyle change is becoming the norm. When will changing the patient’s habits (which cause more problems than any other single source) become the best way to treat medical conditions again? When will we learn that modification of lifestyle and EDUCATION of the general public about the dangers of certain habits is THE BEST WAY to make people healthy? When will medicine take back the lead in HEALTH care (not the illness care system we currently work in)? And most importantly, when will we push the drug companies OUT of controlling health care and stop allowing them to market the system into bankruptcy?
