Weight-Related Health Problems

It's nothing new to know that excess weight is often accompanied by health problems, such as type 2 diabetes or heart disease. But what if I tell you that higher BMI was tied to 37 out of 41 health conditions for women and 29 out of 41 for men.

For women, morbid obesity (defined as a BMI of 35 or greater) was shown to be associated with a more than 12-fold risk of diabetes, an almost 12-fold risk of knee replacement, a sixfold risk of heart failure, a fivefold risk of high blood pressure and gallbladder removal, and a fourfold risk of potentially life-threatening clots to the lungs, chronic fatigue/lack of energy, and insomnia.

Morbidly obese men had a similar list. With the strongest associations seen in diabetes (eightfold risk), knee replacement (sixfold), high blood pressure (sixfold), heart failure (fourfold), and fatigue and lack of energy and insomnia (fourfold).

Deathly facts. Obesity is one of the leading preventable causes of death.

Causes Of Obesity

Most researchers agree that a combination of excessive calorie consumption and a sedentary lifestyle are the primary causes of obesity. In a minority of cases, increased food consumption can be attributed to genetic, medical, or psychiatric illness. The sad fact, the vicious circle of the obesity is that obese people are less active than those of normal weight and they eat more - so, basically, they are gaining even more weight just because they already have extra weight.

Weight Loss or Weight Management

Bariatric or Weight Loss Surgery

Basically weight loss surgery goes three possible ways: reducing the volume of the stomach (makes you feel satiation faster, thus you eat less than usual); reducing the length of bowel (reduces food absorption, thus you eat as usual but food is absorbed in lesser amounts than previously); liposuction (as it only removes the symptoms but not the cause of extra weight, it's a temporary solution - till the next liposuction)

Surgery is always an emergency solution and it is the unsafest way to lose weight - too big is the risk of complications. Hey, it's actually cutting an alive body - how can this be possibly good?

Dieting and Physical Exercise

As it always was and still is, the main but not the only ways to lose weight are dieting and physical exercise. If combined, they produce even more satisfactory results.

Weight-loss diets restricts the intake of specific foods, or food in general, to reduce body weight. Diets to promote weight loss are generally divided into four categories: low-fat, low-carbohydrate, low-calorie, and very low calorie. A meta-analysis found no difference between the main diet types, i.e. they give very similar quantitative and qualitative results. But that's statistically, in general, and in real life what works to reduce body weight for one person will not necessarily work for another, due to metabolic differences and lifestyle factors.

Physical exercise is an important complement to dieting in securing weight loss, i.e. wanna keep good results after dieting and not gain weight again - work out. The advice is that you go for both aerobic and anaerobic exercise as this would increase the basal metabolic rate (BMR) for some time after the workout. This leads to an additional caloric loss.

Though this two methods have the least negative outcome (well, I'd even put it so that dieting and exercise almost always have positive results with less or no harm to your health), still there is one major problem associated with this type of weight loss therapy. It requires the change of lifestyle - radical change. You see, there's probably no normal person on the Earth who loves 'radical' changes in their life and lifestyle.

Lose weight with minor or no changes to lifestyle? Is it anyhow possible?

Medications - so-called 'diet pills' or 'anti-obesity' drugs.

These drugs alter either appetite or metabolism. One thing you should remember about diet pills is that it is recommended that anti-obesity drugs only be prescribed for obesity where it is hoped that the benefits of the treatment outweigh its risks.

There are two commonly prescribed medications for obesity. One is Orlistat, which reduces intestinal fat absorption by inhibiting pancreatic lipase; the other is Sibutramine, which is a specific inhibitor of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine in the brain (very similar to some anti-depressants ), therefore decreasing appetite.

Acomplia (Rimonabant) is the third type of anti-obesity drug, introduced by French pharmaceutical company 'Sanofi-Aventis'. It also reduces the appetite, but the mechanism is different from that of Sibutramine. Acomplia obesity combating drug blocks cannabinoid (CB1) receptors which can be found in the brain, liver and muscle. Funny to know, it effects the same receptors in brain which cause hunger in those who smoked cannabis :) Rimonabant (Acomplia) is the first selective CB1 receptor blocker to be approved for use anywhere in the world.

If to compare the weight loss effect of these three anti-obesity drugs over the longer term, average weight loss on Orlistat is 2.9 kg, Sibutramine is 4.2 kg and Rimonabant (Acomplia) is 4.7 kg. Orlistat and Rimonabant lead to a reduced incidence of diabetes.

Acomplia diet pills not only cause weight loss, but prevent or reverse the metabolic effects of obesity, such as insulin resistance and hyperlipidemia, and may also decrease the tendency to abuse substances such as alcohol and tobacco.

Looks like acomplia does the best. All of the mentioned medications and their derivatives have some potential side effects which are often associated with their mechanism of action, and thus those diet-pills are available as prescription anti-obesity drugs. Sure, you can buy Acomplia and all kinds of other diet drugs without prescription on the Internet but you'd better consult your doctor to make a weighted decision.

Solution - Lose Weight In A Combined Way

Choose some mild diet, work out with pleasure, assist yourself with Acomplia to maximize the effect. Remember that intentional weight loss of any amount is associated with a 20% reduction in all-cause mortality.