Don't use drugs to treat severe obesity indiscriminately

Weight control medication prescription

Modern people are busy at work and under great pressure in life. They often work overtime and go home very late. They even have no time to relax on holidays or catch up on sleep. Therefore, even though many people know how to exercise and control their diet, they still find it difficult to maintain their weight through exercise or diet control. However, without changing your lifestyle, you can actually rely on medication to maintain your weight and avoid the three high diseases.

If you must use medication to control your weight, you must use it under the guidance of a doctor. Clinically, the obesity definitions of the World Health Organization, the Asia-Pacific region, and Taiwan are used as the standard to assess whether the patient is overweight or obese. The most commonly cited value is the BMI value. The average person's BMI value is between 20 and 30. According to the definition of the World Health Organization (WHO), a BMI above 30 is overweight and below 18.5 is underweight. If the data exceeds 40, a combination of medication and surgical treatment will be recommended.

Dr. Chen Jianhong of Tainan City's Dedong Clinic emphasized that there is only one legal weight-loss drug left. This only legal prescription weight-loss drug is a reversible and long-acting gastrointestinal lipase inhibitor. Its therapeutic effect is to form covalent bonds with the lipase secreted by the stomach and pancreas at the activated amino acid position in the gastric cavity and small intestine.

Therefore, inactivated enzymes are unable to hydrolyze dietary fat into absorbable free fatty acids and monoglycerides. Because undigested triglycerides cannot be absorbed, reducing calorie intake is helpful for weight control. While controlling weight, it also reduces the risk of three high diseases. It is a good auxiliary medicine for people with three high diseases or those who are losing weight.

Furthermore, long-term observations of drugs used to treat some diseases also show that they are effective in weight loss. For example, Metformin insulin and acarbose drugs used by diabetic patients both lower blood sugar and slow down the absorption of glucose by the gastrointestinal tract by reducing the output of glucose in the liver and reducing insulin resistance. However, doctors emphasize that this is just a drug that happens to have a weight loss effect through its mechanism of action, and it is not a so-called "diet drug." It is only recommended for weight loss patients who have diabetes or insulin resistance disease.

Generally, in the clinic, patients who are trying to lose weight are recommended to take medications and meal replacements. If the degree of obesity is really to the point where the BMI value is over 40 or the BMI is greater than 35, and the patient has hypertension or diabetes, it is called "morbid obesity" and treatment with gastric bypass, gastric stenting or gastric bag surgery will be recommended. Currently, the health insurance can cover the cost of surgery for this type of morbidly obese patients (but the patient needs to pay for the materials themselves).

Exercise prescription for weight control

Eating too much and sitting for long periods of time are the main reasons why modern people are getting fatter and fatter. If you want to change your body shape, you have to move more. Chen Jianhong reminded that the main purpose of exercise is to increase the metabolic rate and make the body burn more calories. Simply put, if you consume 2,000 calories a day and consume the same 2,000 calories, you can maintain the same weight. If you increase the calories burned through exercise, your weight will drop after a period of time.

The duration of continuous exercise is more important than the intensity of exercise. Moderate to low-intensity exercise is easier to maintain as a habit. Brisk walking, swimming, jogging and cycling are all good. It is generally recommended to focus on aerobic exercise, combined with weight training for muscle strength, and at the same time stretching and stretching.

It is recommended that each exercise should last more than 30 minutes, with the heart rate reaching 120 to 130 beats per minute. It is best to exercise 3 to 4 times a week. For example, while watching TV, you can exercise with dumbbells at the same time, or use a plastic bottle filled with water to achieve the same effect. By increasing the opportunities for physical exercise, you can easily achieve your weight loss goals. Exercise can also release endorphins that make people feel happy, which helps to make people feel happy. It really kills two birds with one stone!

[For more exciting content, please see Changchun Monthly Issue 357]