Smoking, obesity and other preventable behaviors cause illnesses that cost the U.S. healthcare system an estimated $100 billion each year, according to a new study.

Bloomberg News reported Oct. 2 that researchers from Emory University found that people over age 50 in the U.S. have higher rates of heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, and obesity than 10 European nations. One-third of Americans are obese, compared to 17 percent of Europeans.

Smoking remains a problem in the U.S., but also provides a model for addressing other detrimental behaviors. "We took the smoking rate from around 50 percent in the 1960s to around 20 percent today," thanks to taxation, marketing curbs, and other steps, said lead researcher Kenneth Thorpe. "The same menu of a dozen interventions is going to have to occur in some of these illnesses as well."

U.S. healthcare spending is $6,037 per capita, the world's highest and 50 percent higher than the European leader, Switzerland, which spends $4,045 per person each year on health care. However, life expectancy is lower in the U.S. than in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.

The study was published online in the journal Health Affairs. Another study, from the Milken Institute, estimated that U.S. workers with chronic health problems cost employers $1.1 trillion annually in lost productivity.