There is currently an epidemic of obesity in the Western world. Obesity results in a significant increase in the risk of developing other diseases such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, type 2 diabetes and general ill health. It is these associated diseases that have high treatment costs associated with them, and is one of the reasons that Western health care services are straining to cope financially. It has been estimated that reducing the cost of obesity related illness would go along way towards reinvigorating the finances of healthcare services. In response to the basic understanding that obesity is expensive to treat, many drastic strategies for weight loss have been investigated in the hope of finding a magic bullet. Bariatric surgery (gastric band surgery), a procedure whereby the stomach is surgically reduced in size, has become one of the main treatments of last resort for those who are morbidly obese and who do not respond to other treatments. Research into other treatments of this type is ongoing.
For example, in one study1 researchers investigated the effects of electric shock therapy on a group of 14 healthy young men. The subjects were subjected to transcranial direct current stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The results showed that following one week of daily stimulation, the energy intake of the subjects decreased by 14 %, when compared to a procedure that mimicked the electric shocks of the treatment, but did not administer real electric shocks. Therefore as has been shown previously, electrical shocks to particular areas of the brain may be a useful procedure for lowering food intake. However, it is unclear as to the relevance of this experiment to obese individuals because the subject were all of normal body weight with body mass indices of between 20 and 25 kg/m2. Further, as the exact mechanism by which this procedure causes the appetite reducing effect, and considering it is influencing a very delicate and finely balanced part of the body, the benefits and safety of the treatment are not known.
Procedures such as bariatric surgery and electric shock therapy are really good examples of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Some success have been found from bariatric surgery in the very obese, and the health benefits of weight loss in such individuals might outweigh any detrimental effects from the surgery. However, it is well evidenced in the literature that eating a high quality diet is effective at reducing body weight without the need for energy restriction. Few people are aware of this and instead believe that reducing energy intake is the only way to cause a return to normal body weight from an overweight state. As a result many people undertake unnecessary diets, surgical procedures and even hypnosis or counselling, because they believe the inability to eat less is the problem. All along the real reason for the weight gain, low quality junk foods, is ignored and continues to be the elephant in the room. The persons responsible for the obesity epidemic are the food manufacturers who have adulterated the food supply of Westerners.
RdB
