Abstract
Objective: Ningen Dock is carried out for the purpose of prevention and early treatment of lifestyle-related diseases and cancer. However, few studies have been conducted to compare the medical costs of Ningen Dock and general health check-ups. Therefore, we carried out a comparison of medical costs between a group of subjects who underwent a general health check-up each year and a group who underwent Ningen Dock to determine if the latter was more effective in reducing medical costs.
Methods: Our subjects were NTT group employees on the island of Shikoku in their 40s and 50s. The annual medical costs for a group of subjects who underwent a general health check-up continuously from 2003 to 2005 and those for a group which underwent Ningen Dock continuously in the same period were studied over the 5-year period from 2006 to 2010.
Results: Annual medical costs increased gradually in the general health check-up group for males. Cumulative medical costs over the 5 years for those in their 40s were about 143,000 yen for males and -69,000 yen for females. However, for those in their 50s,cumulative costs were about 330,000 yen for males and 40,000 yen for females. The spread between males and females increased every year for both age ranges.
Conclusion: For males in their 50s, even taking the variance in costs between Ningen Dock and general health check-ups into consideration, undergoing Ningen Dock every year was shown to be effective in cutting medical costs.
