NHS Picks Up £6bn a Year Bill for Our Bad Diet
by Nic Fleming

Poor diets are costing the National Health Service £6 billion a year - significantly higher than the £1.5 billion cost of smoking-related ill health, according to research published today.

The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, used data from the World Health Organisation and other published studies to estimate the burden of food-related disease and health costs. In the latest study, Mike Rayner and Peter Scarborough, from Oxford University's department of public health, calculated the impact of ill health and death caused by diet using a measure known as "disability adjusted life years" (DALYs).

A DALY is an indicator of the time lived with a disability and the time lost due to premature death. Illnesses attributed to dietary factors included food poisoning, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, certain types of cancer and tooth decay.

The researchers estimated that 37 per cent of DALYs were linked to food-related disease - but just 0.2 per cent was related to food poisoning. They said that heart disease, cancer and diabetes accounted for most of the burden.

The researchers said that diet was not responsible for all cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer - which together account for 28 per cent of NHS costs with a bill of £18 billion in 2002.

But they estimated that food accounts for around a third of the burden, adding up to 10 per cent of all DALYs and costing £6 billion a year.

"This is twice the £3 billion cost of accidents including car accidents," they said. The researchers also said that the cost was significantly higher than the official estimates for the cost of obesity, at around £479 million a year.

They said that, as this estimate was only concerned with obesity, it considered a smaller range of diseases. It did not take into account tooth decay, for example. The researchers admitted that their calculations were crude.

"Nevertheless they are probably accurate," they said. "The estimates suggest that the burden of food-related ill health is large compared with, say, smoking, and suggest that food-related ill health has been neglected by health and food policy-makers. For example, while there are specific Government targets for smoking in England there are no equivalent dietary requirements."
The Daily Telegraph, 15th November 2005