Healthy eating reduces medical bills by 8.6%: study

This stock photo shows a bowl of salad, commonly thought of as part of a healthy diet. (123rf)

While it's generally understood that a healthy diet is good for the body, a new study published Monday indicated that healthy eating can also reduce medical costs by 8.6 percent.

Researchers from the department of family medicine at Seoul National University Hospital studied the extent to which a well-balanced diet can reduce visits to the hospital and the associated medical expenses. They studied their subjects' annual medical spending, controlling for potentially distorting factors like gender, income and chronic disease.

The eating habits of each participant were assessed on a scale of zero to 100, with higher scores representing a more nutritionally balanced diet. They were then divided into four groups based on their scores.

Participants scored higher for eating more white meat than red meat, consuming nutrient-rich brown rice instead of white rice, and for eating enough vegetables and fruits. Lower intakes of sodium, alcohol and carbonated soft drinks also resulted in a higher score.

Researchers found that the group with the healthiest diets spent on average about 8.6 percent less on total medical expenses than the group with the least healthy eating habits, 12.1 percent less on outpatient care, and 8 percent less on inpatient care.

The research also showed that dietary differences tended to have a greater effect on medical spending among younger people.

In this analysis, the researchers divided their subjects into two groups based on a median age of 57.

The younger people who ate healthily spent 11.5 percent less than those who did not.

According to the researchers, the older group saw a weaker correlation between diet and medical spending due to the cumulative effects of nutritional imbalances over a lifetime, along with other health factors commonly found in that age group.