"Obesity is a disease," said Dr. Louis Aronne, clinical professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. "It has a pathology and a pathophysiology and if the medical community is to slow the advancing health crisis associated with excessive weight gain, then obesity must be viewed and treated as a disease."
Dr. Aronne spoke to a gathered audience of physicians and students at the Oct. 18th Medicine Grand Rounds regarding the obesity epidemic and the methods physicians should employ when treating patients who suffer from obesity and related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. The talk, entitled "Lose Weight, Live Longer: A New Mandate for Treating Obesity," stressed that both obesity and diabetes have increased dramatically in the United States since 1990, and that weight gain can contribute to the onset of other diseases, such as cancer.
To help curb that trend, Dr. Aronne advised that doctors, when possible, prescribe drugs that do not include weight gain as a possible side effect, as well as understand the frustrations of obese patients.
"The proper approach to the patient is an empathetic and non-judgmental one," he said. "You are not prosecuting the patient for the crime of being obese."
The good news, Dr. Aronne said, is that even a little bit of weight loss can greatly improve one's health, and that there are about 100 medications now in development that will be able to aid in that loss. Obese patients, however, must still alter their perception of healthy weight loss and reaching their target weight.
"The goal is 5 to 10 percent weight loss," Dr. Aronne said. "It shouldn't be 'I want to be able to fit into my old Army uniform from the Korean War' or 'I want to fit into that dress in the window.'"