Study finds Americans much less healthy than the English.(Practice Trends)

Americans are much less healthy than their British counterparts, at all levels of socioeconomic status, reported James Banks, Ph.D., of University College, London, and his associates.

In both countries, people with the highest levels of education and income are the healthiest, while those of low education and income are the unhealthiest. But the overall differences in health status between the two countries is so profound that the wealthiest Americans have comparable rates of diabetes and heart disease to people at the lowest levels of education and income in England.

Dr. Banks and his associates compared rates of seven major diagnoses among populations of comparable socioeconomic positions in nationally representative samples from the United States and England. To minimize the effects of racial and age differences between the populations, they restricted their study to only non-Hispanic white men and women aged 55-64 years.

The analysis included health-related data on 2,097 Americans and 5,526 British subjects. All were interviewed in 2002 and underwent physical examinations that included laboratory tests to verify their self-report of conditions such as diabetes.

Overall, Americans were more likely to have diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, a history of myocardial infarction or stroke, lung disease, and cancer than British subjects. Diabetes prevalence was twice as high in the United States (13%) as it was in England (6%), the rate of hypertension was nearly 9% higher, and the rate of heart disease was almost 6% higher, the investigators said (JAMA 2006;295:2037-45).

Regarding markers of future cardiovascular risk, 40% of Americans had high levels of C-reactive protein and 24% had high levels of fibrinogen, compared with 30% and 10%, respectively, among the British participants. Similarly, only 28% of Americans had heart-healthy levels of HDL cholesterol, compared with 44% of the European comparison ...