The researchers found that from age 20 to 56, obese people racked up the most expensive health costs. But because both the smokers and the obese people died sooner than the healthy group, it cost less to treat them in the long run.
On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and obese people lived about 80 years. Smokers and obese people tended to have more heart disease than the healthy people.
Cancer incidence, except for lung cancer, was the same in all three groups. Obese people had the most diabetes, and healthy people had the most strokes. Ultimately, the thin and healthy group cost the most, about $417,000 US, from age 20 on.
The cost of care for obese people was $371,000 US, and for smokers, about $326,000 US.
Now, on beginning to read the article, I was willing to believe that because of the longer life expectancy of 'healthy' people, the cost incurred by them could be greater in the long run. However when I saw that the difference in the average life expectancy was only 7 years, and further saw a $50 000 difference in overall cost I became skeptical.
Since the study only covered costs from age 20 on, I subtracted that 20 from the average life expectancies, and divided the average cost of care for each group into those expectancies. This works out to a seemingly even more absurd result, that healthy people have a health care cost of $6520 per year for the years between 20 and death; an average higher than that for the obese and smokers at $6180 and $5720 respectively. I haven't gone and dug out the actual study itself, but something would seem to be amiss here. The only explanation I see is that healthy people in Holland are apparently a bunch of hypochondriacs. But clearly I am missing something...