Background and purpose: Previously published reports strongly suggest that being overweight is a risk factor for coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, gallstones, and osteoarthritis in women. Substantial health care and medication costs are associated with these chronic health conditions. We used an incidence-based analysis to estimate the excess costs associated with women maintaining an overweight status during the 25-year period from age 40 to 65 years.
Methods: The health care costs of three hypothetical cohorts of 10,000 40-year-old women were extrapolated to age 65. The non-overweight cohort maintained a body mass index (BMI; weight [kg]/height [m2]) of 21 to 24.9; the moderately overweight cohort maintained a BMI of 25 to 28.9; the severely overweight cohort maintained a BMI of > or = 29. The number of fatal and nonfatal health outcomes in each cohort for heart disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, gallstones, and osteoarthritis was calculated with their associated costs.
Results: We estimated that when compared with the non-overweight cohort of 10,000 women, the cohort of 10,000 women who had a BMI of > or = 29 incurred excess costs of $53 million over a 25 year period (discounted at 3% per year) and 497 excess deaths. The cohort of 10,000 women who had a BMI of 25-28.9 incurred excess costs of $22 million (discounted at 3% per year) and 212 excess deaths, compared with the non-overweight cohort.
Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that an estimated $16 billion will be spent during the next 25 years treating health outcomes associated with overweight in middle-aged women in the United States. Thus, a substantial health burden is associated with the increasing prevalence of overweight women in the United States. Preventing excess coronary heart disease, gall-stones, osteoarthritis, hypertension, and diabetes through prevention of weight gain, particularly among reproductive-aged women, may be a cost-effective strategy.