This article went to press on budget day - we managed to cut a penny off income tax and save a few pounds on the public spending round, but could there be a more obvious way to improve the British economy?
Perhaps. Health costs are a major problem for the exchequer but little attention is paid to causes of disease. The relationship between diet and health is now well known and research findings show clearly that a vegetarian diet can make all the difference.
Many of the health costs incurred by the increasingly sickly inhabitants of this sceptred isle are eminently avoidable. Our health care is made up of a string of sticking plasters covering the gaping wounds of cancer and heart disease. Reduce cancer and heart disease and you could, in theory, save a fortune.
So how do we start? Aren't these the very diseases which researchers have for years attempted to fathom out, aren't millions being spent searching for the cancer cure or heart drug which could banish these modern day plagues?
Millions are being spent, but it may be just good money following bad. Millions more animals in laboratories will be sacrificed this year and yet the wonder drugs are just as elusive as ever. The fact is that most cases of heart disease and cancer are not caused by bad luck or genetics, they are caused by bad habits. A miracle solution does exist for these afflictions; it is called avoidance.
And this is where the vegetarians come in.
Coronary heart disease and cancer are the biggest killers in the western world, accounting for about one quarter of all deaths every year in the UK alone. The costs of surgery, in-patient care, prescription drugs and treatments for those who suffer from these two diseases are huge.
It has been demonstrated in study after study that vegetarians are blessed with better health generally, but specifically suffer 30 per cent less heart disease and 40 per cent less cancer. If vegetarianism increases at an even faster pace in the future, the savings could be considerable.
The meat-eating
habit is costing us an
amazing £26 million
pounds every week!
Vegetarians are healthier. The Oxford Vegetarian Study, previously reviewed in The Vegetarian, followed 6,000 vegetarians for 12 vears and revealed some amazing results. When compared with a group of 8,000 meat eaters, all of whom had been carefully matched for smoking, exercise, class and body weight, the vegetarians suffered 20 per cent less heart disease, 39 per cent less cancer (of all types) and an amazing 20 per cent less premature mortality from all causes.
Why? Well the vegetarians had lower blood cholesterol levels and less saturated fat in their diets, they were also ating more fibre than the meat eaters and their intake of the antioxidant vitamins which can fight cancer was presumed to be higher.
Basically, the vegetarians had dealt a deadly blow to cancer and heart disease by avoiding the dangerous fats and carcinogens in meat products and by eating more of the fruits and vegetables which, according to expert opinion, offer us a real hope for a healthy future.
Table 1 - The estimated costs of heart disease
and cancers to the NHS in 2004 (£ million)
. Heart Disease Cancer
In-patient costs 736 1726
Prescriptions 524 98
GP consultations 34 38
Dispensing costs 126 24
Total 1420 1886
Source: Office of Health Econimics, 1995,
Compendium of Health Statistics, 1995
We could have a healthy future which could cost us less. In 1994 cancer cost the National Health Service £1,886 million in prescriptions, in-patient care, GP consultations and dispensing costs. Heart disease cost the NHS £1,420 million (see table 1). Given that vegetarians suffer less from both of these diseases, a vegetarian population would save considerable amounts on these diseases alone. Thirty per cent less heart disease could give a net saving to the NHS of £436 million every year, cancer costs could be cut by a further £754 million. In total, a vegetarian UK could save at least £1,180 million in health care costs every year.
This £1,180 million saving doesn't even begin to take into account illnesses such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, gall stones and diverticular disease all of which are far less prevalent amongst vegetarians. Neither does it allow for the 80 per cent of food poisoning incidents which arise only from the consumption of meat products.
After the NHS has paid out for heart disease and cancer yet more costs are incurred as the Department of Social Security pays benefits for those who have been taken ill (see table 2). In 1992/3. 66 million worlking days were lost to the heart disease and 9.5 million were lost to cancer. Taking the benefit levels paid for heart disease in the previous year, as a guide, the estimated costs to the government in terms of invalidity benefits for these two diseases alone amounts to £660 million every year. It the population were vegetarian, this cost could be cut by up to £205 million.
Table 2: Days of certified incapacity due to sickness and
invalidity in the statistical year 2002/03
. millions
. Men Women Total
All cancers 6.7 2.8 9.5
Heart disease 58.4 7.6 66.0
Source: Department of Social Security,
Social Security Statistics, 1994
This saving is yet again an under-estimate, as those 66 million working days have a crushing effect on British industry, damaging our national efficiency.
As the Americans have discovered, health care costs are getting increasingly out of control as we attempt to treat the afflictions of a population which is suffering from what have been termed the diseases of affluence. Much of the suffering which ends in tragedy and pulls us apart could be easily avoided if the population were healthier. Vegetarianism offers a major solution to the problem.
As we continue to grow as a movement, caring for animals and the environment as well as our personal health, there will be an astounding knock-on benefit to the National Health Service. If you choose to read the above figures in a slightly different light, looking at the potential savings as an opportunity wasted, the meat-eating habit is costing us an amazing £26 million pounds every week.
£26 million pounds every week just to keep on eating meat. Can we really afford it?
