The Cure For Obesity?

Since Mexico is now the world's Number One in terms of obesity of its citizens, there are many asking the question: What can be done to solve this problem?

The answer just might be....gasp!....DRUGS.

I just read a fascinating article in The New Yorker on this subject.  Here's the beginning of that piece, with a link to the full article....


Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?

The woman sat on my exam table and pointed to her snug paper gown. “Doctor,” she said, “I need your help losing weight.”

I spent the next several minutes speaking with her about diet and exercise, the health risks of obesity, and the benefits of weight loss—a talk I’ve been having with my patients for more than twenty years. But, like the majority of Americans, most of my patients remain overweight.

Afterward, I realized that what my patient wanted was a pill that would make her lose weight. I could have prescribed her one of four drugs currently approved by the F.D.A.: two, phentermine and orlistat, that have been around for more than a decade, and two others, Belviq (lorcaserin) and Qsymia (a combination of phentermine and topiramate), that have recently come onto the market and are the first ever approved for long-term use. (Ian Parker wrote about the F.D.A.‘s approval process for new medications in this week's issue.) The drugs work by suppressing appetite, by increasing metabolism, and by other mechanisms that are not yet fully understood. These new drugs, along with beloranib—which produces more dramatic weight loss than anything currently available but is still undergoing clinical trials—were discussed with great excitement last month by experts and researchers at the international Obesity Week conference in Atlanta.

But I’ve never prescribed diet drugs, and few doctors in my primary-care practice have, either. Donna Ryan, an obesity specialist at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University, has found that only a small percentage of the doctors she has surveyed regularly prescribe any of the drugs currently approved by the F.D.A. Sales figures indicate that physicians haven’t embraced the new medications, Qsymia and Belviq, either.

The inauspicious history of diet drugs no doubt contributes to doctors’ reluctance to prescribe them. In the nineteen-forties, when doctors began prescribing amphetamines for weight loss, rates of addiction soared. Then, in the nineties, fen-phen, a popular combination of fenfluramine and phentermine, was pulled from the market when patients developed serious heart defects. Current medications are much safer, but they produce only modest weight loss, in the range of about five to ten per cent, and they do have side effects.

Still, as Ryan pointed out, doctors aren’t always shy about prescribing medications that cause side effects and yield undramatic results. A five to ten per cent weight loss might not thrill patients, or even nudge them out of being overweight or obese, but it can improve diabetes control, blood pressure, cholesterol, sleep apnea, and other complications of obesity. And, although the drugs aren’t covered by Medicare or most states’ Medicaid programs, private insurance coverage of weight-loss drugs has improved and is likely to expand further under the Affordable Care Act, which requires insurers to pay for obesity treatment. So what prevents physicians from prescribing these drugs?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/12/diet-drugs-work-why-wont-doctors-prescribe-them.html

For years, I ran between 250 and 220. I could get down to 220 but then I just couldn't get below that.

I had a little heart attack about 5 years ago and Dr Flores was taking care of me.

He advised this:

Get up in the morning, go walk for 30-45 minutes. Don't eat anything or drink anything before you go walking. Then eat or drink whatever you want for the rest of the day.

I lost 40 pounds in 6 months (240 to below 200). I actually went as low as 180 at one point.

Here's his theory:

You wake up and you haven't eaten for 12 hours and your body needs energy for the walk. There is nothing in the stomach so the body burns fat.

There must be something to it because it certainly worked for me and I'd tried to get to 200lbs for years unsuccessfully.

My father used to say that there were no fat people in occupied France, people had rations on sugar, flour, bread, meat, oil etc.nothing much to eat and very little gasoline to go anywhere so people walked and biked. Many people died as a result of the bombings but it is interesting to know that people during those 5 of forced "dieting" were healthier than in peace time..

The cure for obesity: Eat less, move more.

Rosa Venus wrote:The cure for obesity: Eat less, move more.

exactly!

I gained a lot of weight over the last couple of years, I'm not a big eater at all and I'm pretty active so I thought I was just doomed.
I went on a ketogenic diet (extremely low carb, moderate protein, high fat and 35 LB's just fell off. I feel amazing, I don't have stupid "fibromyalgia" anymore and my weight is good, I'm only a few pounds away from my ideal weight.
Sugar is the devil and wheat and grains were causing me all kinds of problems, mostly chronic pain.
I think it's a good idea to give up sugar and wheat for 2 weeks just to see how you feel. I can't believe the difference it made in my health and energy level.