Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, HA12, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
Nutrients. 2011 Jan;3(1):40-8. doi: 10.3390/nu3010040. Epub 2011 Jan 7.
Optimal dietary quality, indicated by higher diet quality index scores, reflects greater adherence to National dietary recommendations and is also associated with lower morbidity and mortality from chronic disease. Whether this is reflected in lower health care cost over time has rarely been examined. The aim of this study was to examine whether higher diet quality, as measured by the Australian Recommended Food Score (ARFS), was associated with lower health care costs within the mid-aged cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. We found that there was a statistically significant association between five year cumulative costs and ARFS, but in the opposite direction to that predicted, with those in the highest quintiles of ARFS having higher health care costs. However the number of Medicare claims over the six year period (2002-2007) was lower for those in the highest compared with the lowest quintile, p = 0.002. There is a need to monitor both costs and claims over time to examine health care usage in the longer term in order to determine whether savings are eventually obtained for those with the dietary patterns that adhere more closely to National recommendations.
最佳的饮食质量，表现为更高的饮食质量指数得分，反映了对国家饮食建议的更大遵循程度，并且还与慢性病发病率和死亡率的降低有关。但这种情况是否会反映在随着时间的推移医疗保健费用的降低上，很少有研究对此进行检验。本研究的目的是检验澳大利亚推荐食品评分（ARFS）衡量的更高的饮食质量是否与澳大利亚女性健康纵向研究中年队列的更低的医疗保健费用有关。我们发现，五年累计成本与 ARFS 之间存在统计学上的显著关联，但与预测的方向相反，ARFS 得分最高的五分位数的医疗保健费用更高。然而，在六年期间（2002-2007 年），最高五分位数的医疗保险索赔数量低于最低五分位数，p = 0.002。需要随着时间的推移监测成本和索赔情况，以在更长时间内检查医疗保健的使用情况，以便确定对于那些饮食模式更符合国家建议的人，最终是否会节省费用。
