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Smoking, drinking, other bad habits costing United States $18.4 billion each year, study says

Aug. 1, 2013
While trying to talk to your patients about the dangers of tobacco, excessive alcohol usage, and the threat of HPV and oral cancer is never easy for dental professionals, it now appears that there is a price tag that can be put on the problems that come from those lifestyle choices.
Kevin Henry, Cofounder, IgniteDA.net

You know the routine … a patient comes into your dental practice for his six-month checkup and is a known smoker. You talk to that patient about tobacco cessation. He says he will do something about it. He doesn’t. Six months later, the whole process begins again.

While trying to talk to your patients about the dangers of tobacco, excessive alcohol usage, and the threat of HPV and oral cancer is never easy for dental professionals, it now appears that there is a price tag that can be put on the problems that come from those lifestyle choices.

A recent study indicates that if four bad habits (smoking, alcohol consumption, poor nutrition, and physical inactivity) were reduced, the United States could save nearly $18.4 billion in cancer treatment costs.

To arrive at their figures, researchers targeted the most prevalent cancers across the globe – breast, lung, and colon (sorry, oral cancers were not included) – and calculated the cancer costs attributable to the four habits listed above in the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Brazil, India, China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

You can read the entire article on Healthcare Finance Newsby clicking here.

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