Ted Kyle on Obesity

To reduce the already staggering impact of obesity, we must set aside simplistic biases about this complex, chronic disease and aggressively pursue innovative, evidence-based approaches for both treatment and prevention of obesity. For decades, NIH and leading experts in obesity have recognized that obesity is a disease governed by complex physiology, genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors. Research tells us that obesity is chronic because our bodies have powerful hormonal and metabolic mechanisms to protect us from losing weight. These mechanisms worked great when starvation was the biggest threat to survival. Hunger becomes more acute, prodding us to hunt down some food. The calories you burn to keep your body working drops. That drop cancels out the extra calories you might burn with exercise. The part of your brain -- the hypothalamus -- that regulates your weight, metabolism, and hunger is very patient and persistent. Through sheer force of will, people can beat it for a while and lose a lot of weight throughout a period of six months. But then the weight-loss almost invariably plateaus and most people gain some or all of the weight back. The deeper parts of your brain tend to win and "protect" you from starvation. Finally, in 2013, the American Medical Association came to the same conclusion that NIH reached years ago -- that obesity is a complex, chronic disease.  However, pervasive bias gets in the way of treating obesity as we would any other disease. Rese...
Source: PHRMA - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news