cancer prevention

10 Reasons Why Preventive Health Checkup Saves Money

April 30, 2021 By Kathryn Vercillo Leave a Comment

It’s really easy to put off going to the doctor. After all, you’re rarely excited to go spend time there. Therefore, it’s easy to think of plenty of other things you would rather do. If you’re feeling healthy and well, then it’s even easier to put off those appointments. However, there are a lot of good reasons to get regular checkups with your medical professionals. A preventive health checkup saves you money. More importantly, it can save your life.

10 Reasons Preventive Health Care Saves Money

The most important reason to keep your regular doctor checkups is that it lets you catch problems when they’re still small. Therefore, you can more easily correct issues. This can be lifesaving. Preventive health screening for heart attacks, cancer, stroke, diabetes and other major diseases can save your life.

So, that’s the big reason to keep those appointments. But it’s also important to recognize that a preventive health checkup saves money in a variety of different ways.

1. Treatment Is Less Costly When Problems Are Caught Early

Catching health issues early saves both lives and money. Nearly all treatments are significantly easier, less invasive, and less costly if you catch a health problem early on. The worse the problem gets, the more it invades your body. Therefore, the harder treatment is. Thus, the more it costs. Catching problems early makes it easier to treat them. This is better for your health and it’s better for your bank account, too.

2. Developing Rapport With a Doctor Helps You Make Good Decisions

If you keep those regular appointments with the same doctor year in and year out, then you really get to know them. This allows you to develop rapport. In other words, you trust each other. Having a good working relationship with your doctor makes it easier to discuss any type of issues that arise. You’re better able to make the decisions that are right for your health. Your doctor is able to understand your varied situations, including financial concerns. The more comfortable you feel discussing all things with your doctor, the more likely it is you’ll be able to work together to improve your health while saving you money.

3. You’ll Have Time To Research Different Options

If you wait until you’re already in a lot of pain before you see a doctor, then you’re going to feel desperate for an immediate solution. As a result, you might grab the first option you’re offered, no matter the cost. In contrast, a preventive health checkup saves you money by giving you time to consider all treatment options. You’ll know in advance whether a small issue might require greater care down the road. Therefore, you can compare treatment options, shop around for better rates for some treatments, etc.

4. Chances Are You’ll Develop a Healthier Lifestyle

If you know that you’re going to see your doctor on a regular basis then you’re probably going to implement those good habits that you know they’re going to ask you about. This goes for all medical professionals including therapists and dentists. For example, when I started making dental cleaning appointments every three months instead of every six months, I became much more consistent with twice daily flossing.

How does this save money? Obviously, the healthier you are the less you’ll spend on medication and other expensive treatments. But additionally, healthy choices sometimes also save you money. For example, switching from an expensive diet of processed food, soda and takeout to one rich in fresh produce and water might reduce your grocery bill. In this way, a preventive health checkup saves money.

One of the best money-savers in preventive health care is that a lot of people take the advice to stop smoking. Reducing your vices to improve your health helps saves you money.

5. You’ll Help Keep Health Care Costs Down at Work

Research indicates that preventive healthcare improves workplace productivity. Therefore, many employers offer incentives in order to keep up your preventive health checkups and routines. Plus, if you’re someone whose health issues might prevent them from regular work, those checkups are vital in getting you back to a steady income. This, preventive health care can help you to miss less work, earn more money, and take advantage of employer health incentives.

6. You Might Get Better Health Insurance Rates

Depending on your health insurance, you might be able to receive better rates when you commit to preventive health care. After all, your health insurance company doesn’t want to pay out large sums for people who are in terrible health. Instead, they are happy to pay small sums for you to keep your health issues under control. Check with your personal health insurance to find out if preventive health care can save you money on your premiums, deductibles, and/or co-pays.

7. You Might Improve Health Insurance Rates for All

The more people who engage in better preventive health, the better off everyone in society is. The costs of supporting those who can’t work due to illness can be very high. If more people work to support preventive health measures, overall health can rise. Working together in the community has the potential to lead to better health insurance rates for larger groups, not just individuals.

8. Preventive Health Checkup Saves Money on Life Insurance

Are you looking into getting life insurance? If so then you might want to visit the doctor first. Oftentimes your health directly affects your life insurance rates. Preventive health care improves your health. Plus it can show the life insurance company that you take care of yourself. As a result, you might get better life insurance rates.

9. Better Able To Set and Meet Goals

Taking care of your health improves the rest of your life. Preventive health care, including preventive mental health care, can help you optimize your wellbeing. As a result, you’ll have the energy and drive to pursue the things that mean the most to you. As you better set and meet your goals, you can improve your financial situation. You can pay down debt and increase savings as you move that energy towards higher levels of success.

10. You Set a Healthy Stage for the Next Generation

Making preventive care a priority in your life sets an example for the next generation. In the case of prenatal care and childhood preventive care, it also directly impacts your child’s health journey. As a result, you might find that the preventive care you do now saves money for the generations that came after you in your family. More importantly, it can significantly improve their quality of life.

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Two-Thirds of Cancers Occur Due to “Bad Luck”

January 3, 2015 By Lilian Nwa 3 Comments

Can we prevent most cancer from happening with simple lifestyle changes, or do our genes play a overwhelming role in whether or not we get cancer? A recent study from the organization Cancer Research UK uncovered that more than four in 10 cancers could be prevented if individuals made changes to their lifestyle. Work produced by a team of US scientists, however, seems to contradict this claim.

The US team, which consists of Johns Hopkins scientists Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, initially hoped to uncover why certain human tissues are millions of times more vulnerable to cancer than others, a fact that has been “recognized for more than a century” but has never been explained. The results of their analysis published in the prestigious journal Science, showed that “the lifetime risk of cancers of many different types is strongly correlated (0.81) with the total number of divisions of the normal self-renewing cells maintaining that tissue’s homeostasis.”

In other words, tissues that divide more frequently are more susceptible to cancer. Cancer itself, as defined by the World Health Organization, “arises from one single cell,” which is transformed “from a normal cell into a tumor cell…[as] the result of the interaction between a person’s genetic factors and three categories of external agents.” These “external agents” include physical carcinogens such as UV radiation, chemical carcinogens such as components of tabacco smoke, and biological carcinogens, such as infections from certain viruses, parasites or bacteria.

Returning to the Science report, Tomasetti and Vogelstein essentially explained why skin cancers, for example, occur more frequently in the population than bone cancers. Skin cells are constantly being regenerated and the rapid and constant division of these cells makes it more likely that random error or mutations are introduced into the genome to create a tumor cell. Thus, most cancers are simply due to “bad luck.”

Many scientists have praised the novelty of this study. Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell researcher at UC Davis, told U-T San Diego that, “I expect this paper will catalyze many new studies in this area…As both a cancer researcher and cancer survivor myself, I found the idea put forth by this paper…provocative.”

Another researcher, Tannishtha Reya of UC San Diego, told the newspaper in an email, “There is an entire field that has grown around the concept that cancers share a great deal with stem cells. For example, cancers can often originate in stem cells because they are long lived and can self renew indefinitely, cancers often hijack stem cell signals to drive aberrant self renewal…This paper in many ways provides enormous support for these concepts that have been developed in this field…It really supports the idea that understanding how stem cells function and how they can be hijacked to give rise to cancerous cells is critically important…”

Still, speaking to Science News, Bruce Ponder, a cancer researcher at the University of Cambridge in the UK, warned that, “It may not just be whether a mutation occurs…There may be other factors in the tissue that determine whether the mutation is retained” and whether it results in malignancy.

Altogether, this study illustrates that cancer is not always preventable. As Hans Clevers, a stem cell and cancer biologist at the Hubrecht Institute told Science News, “The average cancer patient…is just unlucky.” Still, more research should be done to determine if certain lifestyle patterns or environmental factors increase the chances that a person becomes “unlucky.” Douglas Lowry, deputy director of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland seems to agree when he told Science News that efforts to avert the disease must continue.

(Photo courtesy of Yale Rosen)

40 Percent of Cancers Could Be Prevented with Simple Lifestyle Changes

December 27, 2014 By Lilian Nwa 2 Comments

40% of cancers could be prevented with lifestyle changes

Oftentimes cancer has been called a “disease of old age” given that it primarily affects older individuals. Researchers, however, are discovering that beyond old age, cancer is also a disease associated with lifestyle choices.

According to research conducted by Cancer Research UK, approximately 600,000 cancer cases in the UK could have been avoided had individuals lived healthier lifestyles. In fact, as described in a press release by the organization, “More than four in 10 cancers could be prevented…[w]ith health services already overstretched and people living longer, prevention is vital to tackle cancer head on.”

Decades of research have clearly shown that smoking is the most significant, preventable cause of cancer worldwide, resulting in nearly 100 million deaths in the 20th century alone. Cancers associated with smoking including lung cancer as well as cancers of the larynx, mouth, throat, bowel, pancreas and certain types of leukemia, among others.

Less obvious lifestyle choices, however, include protecting one’s skin from the sun by avoiding the sun when its rays are strongest (between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.) and covering exposed skin areas. Additional tips from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota include eating a healthy diet consisting of fruits and vegetables, limiting fats that increase the risk of becoming overweight or obese, and engaging in regular exercise.

Additionally, researchers recommend drinking alcohol in moderation given that alcohol consumption can increase the risk of certain cancers including cancer of the breast, colon, lung, kidney and liver. Of course these risks depend on the amount and length of time that an individual consumes alcohol, still alcohol consumption is a consideration to have when considering one’s own lifestyle choices.

Other factors include vaccinations: certain viral infections can increase cancer risk. Acquiring immunizations against Hepatitis B and Human papillomavirus (HPV) can collectively reduce one’s risk of developing liver or genital cancers respectively.

Professor Linda Bauld from Cancer Research UK has said, “There are more than 200 types of cancer each caused by a complex set of factors…WE must make sure the public and the policy-makers know the evidence behind the benefits of these lifestyle changes is solid.”

Beyond lifestyle changes, individuals must make sure to remain in regular medical care. Physicians and healthcare practitioners can demonstrate how to conduct self-exams as well as screen people for various types of cancer of the skin, colon, prostate, breast and cervix. Generally, early detection of cancer can increase a person’s chance of survival, so it is important to be proactive about cancer prevention.

(Photo courtesy of Boby)