Awhile back I wrote about weight loss surgery in Australia being reported as a cure for diabetes. It was right before election day and the other poll workers read it and told me they had no intentions of going under the knife to lose a few pounds. For older adults it is notoriously difficult to diet off weight, especially if there has been a life long pattern of dieting. The metabolism is a genius at conserving weight to prepare for periods of famine. There is a study about the people who regain their weight after gastric reduction surgery at the Geisinger Clinic in Pennsylvania. They found that twenty percent of the subjects who had bariatric surgery had a genetic variation and had a poor response in weight loss. One in five would continue to have weight problems after the surgery. They don’t know enough yet to use this factor to select patients for the surgery, but it may help explain why some folks remain obese after the procedure. They may respond to genetic therapy yet to be developed rather than surgical treatment.
The people in the study had BMI (Body Mass Index, a reliable estimate of body fat) that was over 40. The limit for obese instead of merely overweight is a BMI of 30. If you don’t know your BMI there are several ways to get it. Weight Watchers has an easy to use chart and the National Institutes of Health has a wonderful calculator on their weight control web site: www.nhlbi.nih.gov, The NIH website also has a “portion distortion” link that is fascinating. It shows how the size of food portions has grown over the past twenty years and contributes to the obesity epidemic in the US.
On election day we soothed our nerves on the topic in a time tested and traditional manner- Girl Scout Cookies!