Obesity and its management
Post by on Thursday, September 30, 2021
Obesity is a multifactorial disorder of homeostatic control of energy balance in modern era of digitization due to various reasons and growing worldwide that is a global health problem,the globesity leading to health problems directly like osteoarthritis and indirectly being one of the important risk factors for diabetes mellitus,hypertension,heart disease,gall stones,stroke and certain type of cancers.Body mass index(BMI) is proposed by WHO expert commitee calculated by dividing the body mass in kilogram by the square of height in meters.Simply the person with BMI of 20-24.9 is considered healthy,BMI 25-29.9 is overweight and more than 30 is obese.However currently,waist hip ratio(WHR) is considered a better guide and value of less then 0.85 and 0.75 is considered excellent for men and women respectively while as WHR value of greater or equal to 0.95 and 0.85 in men and women respectively is considered risky for heart attacks.
A multidisciplinary team approach to the management of obesity is necessary to ensure long term success including dietary stratagies,behavioural modification,physical activity and medication.Multiple medications are associated with weight gain like steroids,contraceptives,certain antidiabetics,antihypertensives etc and should be reviewed.Antiobesity medications can be considered in patients with BMI 30 or higher in addition to diet and exercise.All of these drugs(F.D.A. approved) reduce the absorption of nutrients or act in C.N.S to reduce appetite.
Dr Muhammad Younis Bhat
Assistant Professor Department of Pharmacology, GMC Srinagar