Aetna finds mind-body link to care costs

Aetna finds mind-body link to care costs
01/13/11

Hartford managed care provider Aetna Inc. thinks it's on to a vital clue in which an unstressed mind and body are key to people staying well enough to lower their medical bills.
In a 12-week study in which 239 Aetna employees volunteered as guinea pigs, meditation and therapeutic yoga combined to curb stress levels in the groups that performed one or the other, the insurer said.
Of those, 96 employees were assigned to mindful meditation classes, and 90 were assigned to therapeutic yoga classes. The remainder did neither exercise and were assigned as the control group.
Not only did participants in the control group record higher stress levels than the mind-body exercise participants, they also had medical costs that were $2,000 a year higher than those reporting the lowest level of stress, Aetna said.
Aetna stressed the study results are not totally conclusive and is meant to supplement conventional health treatment. However, it says the findings are enough that it will expand the study to include more volunteers to validate the results.
"Helping people take control of their health is a critical step in achieving better health and reducing the cost of health care," Aetna President and CEO Mark Bertolini said in a statement Thursday. "Stress takes a significant toll on physical and mental health. We want to understand, and also demonstrate, whether integrative medicine can offer our members options that both better suit their lifestyles and can be proven to improve their health."