In the News: Obesity as a Disease: What Does It Mean for Americans?

It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man....according to the CDC 35% of Americans have been Stay-Puft.

by Amanda Woerner /Published June 19, 2013 /FoxNews.com

Now that obesity has been officially classified as a disease by the American Medical Association (AMA), many are wondering how this will affect the 35.7 percent of Americans who are described as obese by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Will this decision help facilitate better treatments for people who are currently obese? And will this new classification help combat the country’s growing obesity epidemic? Dr. Leena Khaitan, director of the bariatric surgery program at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, hopes the answers to those questions will be, ‘Yes.’

“Right now, physicians will treat high blood pressure, diabetes, give patients medications and say, ‘Oh you also need to lose weight,’” Khaitan told FoxNews.com. “I think (this) gives the physicians a little more credibility in pushing patients to address obesity and become healthier. It’s recognized as a disease…not just something that (because) you have poor lifestyle habits, this is your problem.”

The AMA, which voted for the change on Tuesday, concurs, saying they hope their decision will prompt greater communication between doctors and patients.

“The most important point we want to make is it will be important for physicians and patients to work together to develop weight goals and other goals as well,” Dr. Patrice Harris, an AMA board member, told FoxNews.com. “The point is to raise the level of awareness about obesity and have patients and physicians talk together to decide on weight goals, blood pressure goals, cholesterol goals (and) blood glucose goals.”

Obesity is associated with a range of health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and an increased risk for cancer. Though numerous treatments exist to treat problems associated with obesity – like high blood pressure and cholesterol – remedies for obesity are limited.

According to Khaitan, bariatric surgery is often the best option for obese people who haven’t been able to lose weight through traditional diet and exercise programs. However, weight loss surgery is often seen as an elective procedure by insurance companies, meaning patients usually have to pass through many hurdles before they undergo the procedure.

“Up until now, without that classification, the path to obesity surgery (has been) very challenging,” Khaitan said. “Oftentimes people have to pay extra to have that type of insurance policy, (and) many employers choose not to cover it because it’s consider an elective operation. Now, we’re saying obesity surgery is no longer elective, it is truly something that will treat (this) disease and is potentially lifesaving.”

Additionally, Khaitan hopes that the changes will also make it easier for obese patients – or those at risk for obesity – to receive nutritional counseling.

“If I send a patient to a dietician, that isn’t covered by insurance,” Khaitan said. “But hopefully by changing this classification, this would become a covered treatment for people, and they’ll be more likely to actually do it.” 

Though there are many upsides to obesity’s new classification, Khaitan hopes that patients will not use the ‘disease’ classification as a crutch.

“I don’t want patients to say, ‘Oh I have this disease,’ and not take accountability for it to make changes they need to make to fight this disease,” Khaitan said.

When asked whether or not they had considered whether obesity could now also be categorized as a disability, Harris said, “We did not have the issue of disability in this particular policy, and that’s not the focus of this policy.” 

Additionally, the AMA expressed the hope that their decision will spur more research into potential prevention and treatments methods – as well as decrease overall health care costs for both patients and insurers.

“The direct cost of obesity is over $535 billion a year, and we could reduce that with improved health outcomes,” Harris said. “Patients could lead healthier lives and reduce health care spending.”

Read more:

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/19/obesity-as-disease-what-does-it-mean-for-americans/#ixzz2WgJISM4d

Paul Spector M.D.: Being in the Dark Is a Good Thing: Darkness and Disease

You don't hear much about light pollution. And when you do, it's usually a story about wildlife or greenhouse gases or stargazing. That's about to change.

Recent research has drawn a connection between dim light exposure at night and depression. T
he investigators found that light, comparable to the levels of light pollution surrounding cities, not only triggered depression in animal models but also increased specific inflammatory molecules in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in mood disorders. When the inflammatory molecules were blocked, the depression lifted.

We have known for some time that inflammation is associated with many diseases. In fact, it seems as if it is an essential condition for most of them. A Who's Who of inflammatory illnesses would number over 100 and include Alzheimer's, atherosclerosis, arthritis, Parkinson's, cancer and mood disorders. The connection with mood disorders was first appreciated when depression was found to be more prevalent in those with inflammatory disorders than in the general population.

So the medical community has targeted anything that causes chronic inflammation as something to nip in the bud. The big players here have been stress, Western diet (high in fat and processed foods), and sedentary lifestyle. Now we may have to add light at night (LAN).

This shouldn't come as a complete surprise. We evolved in an environment that alternated between light and dark. Over tens of thousands of years, this was an environmental constant. In this setting, our cells developed a kind of clock that is organized on a daily (circadian) pattern. Disrupt that rhythm and the trouble begins.

In the 100 years that widespread use of electric bulbs has become the norm, our genome has not adapted. Genetic change does not occur that rapidly. We are still wired for darkness at night, and artificial light disrupts our circadian rhythms. A growing body of research suggests that artificial light at night increases the risk for a variety of diseases including obesity and certain cancers.

If you think about some of the most common symptoms of depression, this story makes more sense. Circadian cycles, sleep, hunger-satiety, and memory are typically altered in depression. People with depression describe difficulty sleeping or excessive sleep. They often relate that their "clock is off." They complain of a loss of appetite or an inability to stop eating.

Depression's capacity to impair memory is so profound that depressives have been misdiagnosed as suffering from dementia, a memory disorder.

The brain centers that control these functions (hunger-satiety, circadian cycles-sleep, memory) are located in the hypothalamus.[Bingo! That's the part of the brain adversely affected by light at night, according to the recent research.

Over the past century there has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of depression, sleep disorders and obesity. This new data suggest that at least part of this increase could be due to the ever-growing exposure to light at night.

Imagine if we were to discover that light plays a major role in the obesity epidemic. I can see the headline now: "My Nightlight Made Me Fat."

So how might you respond to these findings?

Does your bedroom look like a NASA control room when you turn off the lights? Does your phone, TV, cable, computer, fax, printer, smoke alarm, etc. emit light? Do your curtains eliminate all light from outside?

For once, we may want to be in the dark.

For more by Paul Spector, M.D., click here.