Diabetes, complications cost patients $4,100 a year, RTI says

Research Triangle Park, N.C. — Now people have another major reason to take better care of themselves through diet – a new study from RTI International documents the financial cost of the disease.

And it’s not cheap.

In what it says is the first study to examine the medical cost of diabetes, RTI found that people with the disease pay $4,100 more a year on medical costs than people who don’t. That’s starting at age 50 for a newly diagnosed patient.

"Delaying the development of diabetes will delay the steady rise in medical expenditures that accompanies it," the study’s authors wrote.

Costs increase another $158 every year, RTI found in the study that was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The good news is that many of these costs could be contained through proper diabetes management and lifestyle changes," said Justin Trogdon, a research economist at RTI, who led the project. "Numerous studies show that losing weight and increasing physical activity, along with maintaining proper blood glucose levels, can substantially delay or reduce the risk for diabetes-related complications. What our study does is to point out that there is also a cumulative, financial impact to the progression of this disease."

According to RTI, much of the medical costs are linked to complications including heart and kidney disease. If complications are controlled, medical cost increase $75 per year.