Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Americans are more likely than Europeans to be treated for preventable chronic diseases caused by obesity and smoking, adding more than $100 billion a year to U.S. health spending, a study found.

The U.S. is worse than 10 western European nations in the prevalence of heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis and excess weight among people more than 50 years old, according to a study published today on the Web site of the journal Health Affairs. The obesity rate among Americans is 33 percent, compared with 17 percent in 10 western European nations, said researchers at Emory University in Atlanta.

Health policy makers can't rein in medical costs in the U.S. unless they reverse obesity trends, said lead researcher Kenneth Thorpe, an Emory professor of health policy. Only multiple approaches to encourage better nutrition, such as new tax, marketing and farm policies, will work, he said.

``We took the smoking rate from around 50 percent in the 1960s to around 20 percent today,'' Thorpe said in a telephone interview. ``The same menu of a dozen interventions is going to have to occur in some of these illnesses as well.''

Health-care spending on each person in the U.S. was $6,037, the highest in the world and 50 percent higher than Switzerland's $4,045, the most in Europe, the report said.

Thorpe studied data from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland for 2004, the latest year for which comparative data was available. The lowest spending was Spain's $2,099, 35 percent of the U.S. medical bill.

Life Expectancy

Life expectancy in the U.S. to a child born in 2005 was 77.9 years, according to the World Health Organization. Longevity in Europe ranges from 79.2 years in the Netherlands to 81.4 years in Switzerland, WHO said.

The Emory study compared prevalence and treatment rates for chronic conditions including high cholesterol, cancer, diabetes, lung diseases, arthritis and osteoporosis.

The biggest gap was for arthritis. In the U.S., 54 percent of patients older than 50 are diagnosed with the painful joint disease, compared with 21 percent in Europe. Arthritis can be caused by obesity, according to the study.

The only chronic illness diagnosed more frequently in Europe was osteoporosis, a weakening of bones that leads to increasing fractures. Doctors diagnosed it in 7.8 percent of Europeans and 5 percent of Americans.

If Americans older than 50 were diagnosed and treated at the lower European rates for those conditions, average health- care spending per person in the U.S. would drop by $1,195 to $1,750 a year, Thorpe said.

Medicare Policies

Policies set by Medicare, the U.S. government-run insurance program for 43 million elderly and disabled people, will be pivotal, Thorpe said.

``We need to have a fundamental re-examination of the existing Medicare program,'' which does a ``mediocre job at best'' of managing patients with chronic health problems, Thorpe said.

A separate study released today by the Milken Institute found that $1.1 trillion is lost in the U.S. annually because workers with chronic conditions take sick days or don't perform as well when they come to work ill.

Improved prevention and treatment of such diseases, including high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease and diabetes, could increase economic output by $905 billion by 2023, according to the economic research institute based in Santa Monica, California.

The Milken study was partly funded by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry trade group.

To contact the reporter on this story: Avram Goldstein in Washington at agoldstein1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 2, 2007 10:36 EDT