Metabolic syndrome risk factors increased health care costs by $2,000 annually

Risk factors associated with the metabolic syndrome, such as high blood pressure and obesity, may increase health care costs by about $2,000 per year, according to recent data.

“People with metabolic syndrome had higher utilization of inpatient, primary care and other outpatient and pharmacy services when compared with people without metabolic syndrome risk factors — even over the short timeframe of two years,” researchers wrote.

The researchers set out to compare common health care use and costs among people with (n=98,091) and without metabolic syndrome (n=72,557). Study participants were aged between 21 and 87 years and were enrolled in one of three health care plans: Group Health, Kaiser Permanente Colorado or Kaiser Permanente Northwest. Patients with metabolic syndrome had higher overall health care use and costs when compared to patients without metabolic syndrome.

Average annual total costs among people with metabolic syndrome vs. those without metabolic syndrome varied by an overall magnitude of 1.6 ($5,732 vs. $3,581). Total costs increased by an average of 24% per additional risk factor (P<.001).

When stratified by diabetes, the average annual total costs varied by a magnitude of 1.3. Among people with diabetes the average annual costs for those with metabolic syndrome were $7,896 vs. $6,038 for those without metabolic syndrome. Among those without diabetes the costs were $4,476 vs. $3,422.

People with diabetes plus weight risk, dyslipidemia and hypertension spent almost double the amount of people with prediabetes and similar risk factors: $8,067 vs. $4,638.

“This important study clearly brings home the enormous economic burden that the metabolic syndrome extracts in a very large sample,” Ishwarlal Jialal, MD, PhD, professor of internal medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, said in a press release. “Future studies should be directed at targeting dyslipidemia, hypertension, etc., to see what the savings would be with respect to complications and economic burden.”

Boudreau DM. Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders. 2009;7:305-314.