Healthcare Costs Associated with Change in Body Mass Index in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Spain

Tatiana Dilla (), Amparo Valladares, Claudia Nicolay, Javier Salvador, Jesús Reviriego and María Costi

Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 2012, vol. 10, issue 6, 417-430

Abstract: Background: Weight management is considered a key therapeutic strategy in type 2 diabetes mellitus. However, little is known about the impact of weight loss or body mass index (BMI) reduction on type 2 diabetes-related healthcare costs. Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate the economic impact of change in BMI among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus from the Spanish healthcare system perspective. Methods: The ECOBIM study is an observational, non-interventional study in which data on BMI change and costs incurred by patients with type 2 diabetes were collected cross-sectionally and retrospectively for a 12-month period. Generalized linear mixed models were applied to estimate the effects of (i) BMI change in general (one-slope model); (ii) BMI gain and no BMI gain (two-slope model); and (iii) BMI gain and no BMI gain among obese and non-obese patients (four-slope model). Results: We studied 738 patients with a mean (SD) age of 66 (11) years and BMI of 30.6 (5.2) kg/m 2 . During the 12-month study period, 41.2% of patients gained BMI (BMI gainers) and 58.8% experienced either loss (52.2%) or no change (6.6%) in BMI (non-BMI gainers). One-unit gain (or loss) in BMI was significantly (p>0.001) associated with a 2.4% cost increase (or decrease) [one-slope model]. Every unit gain in BMI was associated with a 20.0% increase in costs among BMI gainers while losing one unit was associated with an 8.0% decrease in costs among non-BMI gainers (two-slope model, p>0.01). The economic benefit associated with reducing one BMI unit was 9.4% cost decrease in obese and 2.7% in non-obese patients (4-slope model). Conclusion: An increase in BMI among patients with type 2 diabetes was associated with increased 1-year direct healthcare costs. A reduction in BMI was associated with appreciable short-term economic benefits, especially in obese patients. Copyright Springer International Publishing AG 2012

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF03261876 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:aphecp:v:10:y:2012:i:6:p:417-430

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40258

DOI: 10.1007/BF03261876

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Health Economics and Health Policy is currently edited by Timothy Wrightson

More articles in Applied Health Economics and Health Policy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().