Weight Loss

Are you overweight? Everybody wants to look and feel good and that means keeping a healthy diet and exercising regularly. Obese or overweight adults and children are fueling concerns about the health of America as overall health is directly related to weight. Your health risks increase with your weight and researchers are finding that health risks are also affected by your waist size! Fat around the middle, the so-called apple shape, is related strongly to diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart attacks. Research studies have found that the more you weigh the more likely you are to have significant health problems. Clinical Studies for weight loss

Clinical trials are currently underway that affect weight loss, fat metabolism, cholesterol and diabetes. Metabolic Syndrome, also known as Syndrome X, is an increasingly important medical condition characterized by glucose intolerance (a high fasting blood sugar associated with high insulin levels), abnormal lipid levels, high triglycerides, apple shaped body type, and high blood pressure. Together these findings lead to a significant risk of heart disease.

High cholesterol levels are generally treated with diet and exercise, but if diet and exercise fail or if high cholesterol levels are primarily due to heredity, then statin medications are prescribed to reduce the body’s production of cholesterol. Research studies with new medications that work like statins but may have fewer side effects are underway. Treating high cholesterol levels directly reduce the risks of having serious heart attack and strokes. People at high risk for heart attack or stroke, such as those already with these conditions, or those with close relatives with these conditions, have a lower targeted LDL cholesterol ( known as bad cholesterol) than people in the general population.

Diabetes Mellitus is an increasingly widespread disease that is most commonly found in an overweight population as type II diabetes or adult onset diabetes. In type II diabetes the pancreas has been stimulated to produce large amounts of insulin due to increased caloric intake. High levels of insulin circulating in the body lose effectiveness over time, and patients develop insulin resistance. This is very different from type I diabetes in which the pancreas is no longer able to manufacture insulin.

Weight loss by calorie restriction and exercise are the first line of treatment for overweight individuals at risk for developing diabetes due to poor eating habits, obesity, or genetic predisposition. Every diabetic should know his Hemoglobin A1c level and track it as a measure of blood glucose control over time. The HgbA1c is blood test that measures how much glucose is circulating in the bloodstream over a 3 month period based on the attachment of glucose to hemoglobin . If diet and exercise cannot bring the Hgb A1c to acceptable levels, below 7 %, then medications such as metformin are used to increase the body’s sensitivity to insulin. Medications are being studied in clinical trials to improve the body’s ability to handle abnormally high blood sugar and increase the body’s sensitivity to insulin.

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