Study: Most diabetics fall short on healthy eating

NEW YORK The complications that can result from unhealthy eating among middle-aged and elderly Americans with Type 2 diabetes have consequences for the whole healthcare system, but it’s not just diabetes, which already costs the U.S. healthcare system $116 billion. Unhealthy eating habits contribute to and exacerbate obesity, hypertension and kidney disease, diseases that often have causal relationships to one another. Obesity and diabetes already cost the healthcare system $147 billion and $116 billion, respectively.

A recent study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that 85% of middle-aged and elderly Americans with Type 2 diabetes ate too much saturated fat, while 92% ate too much sodium, while less than half get the minimum amount of fruits, vegetables, dairy and grains. This increases their already high risk of hypertension, kidney disease and heart disease.

Encouraging healthy eating could do a lot to reduce the costs of healthcare in America and allow a greater focus on unpreventable disease states rather than having $263 billion go toward treating preventable ones.