A 6-year comparative economic evaluation of healthcare costs and mortality rates of Dutch patients from conventional and CAM GPs.

Objectives: To compare healthcare costs and mortality rates of Dutch patients with a conventional (CON) general practitioner (GP) and patients with a GP who has additionally completed training in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Design: Comparative economic evaluation.

Setting: Database from the Dutch insurance company Agis.

High frequency body mass measurement, feedback, and health behaviors.

We analyze weight and fat percentage measurements of respondents in an online general population panel in the Netherlands, collected using wireless scales, with an average frequency of 1.6 measurements per week. First, we document the existence of a weekly cycle; body mass is lowest on Fridays and highest on Mondays, showing significant (p<0.

Patients whose GP knows complementary medicine tend to have lower costs and live longer.

Background: Health economists have largely ignored complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as an area of research, although both clinical experiences and several empirical studies suggest cost-effectiveness of CAM.

Objective: To explore the cost-effectiveness of CAM compared with conventional medicine.

Methods: A dataset from a Dutch health insurer was used containing quarterly information on healthcare costs (care by general practitioner (GP), hospital care, pharmaceutical care, and paramedic care), dates of birth and death, gender and 6-digit postcode of all approximately 150,000 insurees, for the years 2006-2009.