Even though obesity is, to put it mildly, a very complex issue, everyone seems to be searching for an easy fix. Many folks have told me to "just wire my mouth shut, Doc." As an alternative, people can inquire, "Can you just sew up my stomach so I can't eat anything?" Interesting suggestions, but the reality is that you need to eat, as we discovered in the last chapter on the functioning of the digestive system. Every human being needs food; it's a necessity for survival. A lifetime of overeating cannot be successfully changed by a single treatment, not even surgery.
Modern medicine very recently added bariatric surgery, and it is still a developing field of study. Several unique operations have been created in the last 50 years or so exclusively to treat overweight individuals. Every subsequent method has undergone a lot of modifications and improvements in an effort to strike a balance between effectiveness and safety.
The word "bariatrics" is derived from the Greek word baros, which meaning "weight." The weight of the atmosphere over any particular region of the earth's surface is referred to as "barometric pressure," which is a term we have all heard meteorologists use. Bariatrics is the study and treatment of the issue of excessive body weight, according to medical terminology.
Weight gain as a disease
Before discussing specific weight-loss surgery techniques, there is a significant question regarding obesity that has not yet received a satisfactory response. Is it a disorder or a condition? Although doctors have always been aware of the issue and its detrimental impact on their patients' health, it was previously believed that obesity was more of a social illness than a health one. It has therefore been largely disregarded by the general medical profession. The idea that there were no successful treatments lent credence to this thinking.
However, as the obesity epidemic has grown, the issue has drawn more scientific attention, and numerous significant medical organizations, like the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health, have recognized obesity as a disease. However, this classification is still under scrutiny, particularly by the health insurance sector. Given that only effective therapies for recognized disorders are covered by health insurance, it turns out that this is a very essential topic for discussion. Clearly, the health insurance sector could face a huge financial risk if obesity is finally recognized as a real condition.
It has been fascinating to hear people' justifications for wanting bariatric surgery over the past few years. They frequently talk about improving their health when they speak. Sometimes they are even more explicit, claiming to have been told they have high blood pressure or diabetes and that this has made them aware of the impact their weight is having on their general health. What interests me the most is how frequently patients tell me that it was their idea, not their doctor's, to consider surgery as a cure for lifelong obesity. This is in part due to the fact that surgery is typically the only option available to patients who are morbidly obese, and many internists and family doctors do not view surgery as a viable alternative. On the other hand, conditions are always recommended more suitable medical remedies.
Something weight inevitably takes a back seat to. While their main cause, obesity, is largely ignored, conditions like diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, back discomfort, and knee and hip arthritis are all addressed with medications or other methods.
In the past, it has taken a long time for other widely misunderstood disorders to be classified as diseases. Numerous psychiatric issues like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as well as neurological diseases like Alzheimer's disease are among them. Even though the medical treatments were not very effective, they were a part of the process that helped these problems be recognized as diseases.
It is still debatable whether obesity is a disease because there is no specific medical cure for it and because there is a bias that says that personal indifference or lack of discipline is to blame. Since obesity has become an epidemic and undergoing surgery would be very expensive for insurers, the resolution of this issue would have broad ramifications. The terrible impact fat has on a person's health are beyond question. The number of medical therapies for obesity has grown recently. Now let's examine these remedies.
Drugs for Obesity Treatment
Although obesity has always existed, it wasn't until around 50 years ago that it started to be acknowledged in the US as a significant health problem. The public's desire for a solution grew as the issue persisted. Health clubs that emphasize the importance of exercise became a widespread phenomenon in the 1970s and are still quite popular today. But for those who are actually severely obese, exercise-alone results have, to put it mildly, been unsatisfactory.
Over the years, a number of appetite suppressants and metabolic boosters have been developed, including medications like Phenteramine® and Meridia®. Even though these medications have had some effectiveness in treating people who simply need to lose a few pounds, they have failed when the issue is morbid obesity. Fen-phen, a combination of Fenfluramine® and Phentermine®, was arguably the most popular of these medications. Although both of these medications had been around for a while, it wasn't until the early 1990s that they were combined. Fen-phen was quickly prescribed by numerous doctors for their fat patients after it was first released. The outcomes in several instances were shocking. Because Fen-phen greatly reduced appetite, patients swore by it. However, Fen-phen and another medication that was somewhat similar, Redux®, were removed from the market in 1997 after being connected to the emergence of a potentially fatal form of valvular heart disease. Unfortunately, no other medication has produced the same level of weight loss either before or since.
Xenical®, a separate medication, operates in a completely different manner. It stops ingested fat from being absorbed by binding it up inside the intestine. The concept is appealing because it seems to imply that you may eat whatever you want and the fat will simply pass through. But once more, there may be negative nutritional impacts because some vital fatty acids and vitamins that are fat-soluble cannot be absorbed by the body. Additionally, it's crucial to keep in mind that not all calories come from fat. Simple sugars, complex carbs, and protein absorption
are unaffected by Xenical®, therefore weight gain is still a possibility when using this drug.
There has also been promotion for a range of over-the-counter appetite suppressants and metabolic boosters as prospective weight loss aids. If only their assertions were accurate, the obesity issue would be solved overnight. Although there are more medical and nonmedical solutions available, they have little impact on the expanding epidemic.