GOOD news on obesity is rare, so small wonder that the latest forecasts from the US were reported with a positive spin. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, estimates that will be obese by 2030, up from 36 per cent today. That is a strange sort of good news 鈥� until you compare it with earlier, even worse, projections.
Such small successes do not disguise the fact that obesity remains a huge public health problem that seems immune to every intervention.
All except one, that is. Weight-loss surgery has a success rate that diets, drugs and public awareness campaigns can only dream of.
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Again, that is a strange sort of good news. Surgery is a last resort and yet it offers glimmers of genuine hope. It seems it may work less by re-plumbing the gut than by rewiring the brain (see 鈥淐hange your stomach, change your brain鈥�). Understanding these side effects could open the door to new drug treatments.
The history of weight-loss medicine is littered with failures so perhaps this is the start of another. When the prognosis is so bad, though, any sliver of optimism is light relief.
