Moderate weight loss is healthy, but excessive weight loss is unhealthy. While losing excess weight is helpful for one’s overall health and metabolic function, excessive weight loss can be damaging and dangerous. Currently, GLP-1 medications, and the latest addition to this group Retatrutide ( but not yet FDA approved) can cause a reduction of weight that approaches 30% of one’s prior weight. Retatrutide is a more powerful GLP-1 agent because it contains three incretin hormon

Many overweight individuals ask: are there foods that can change your metabolic rate? The answer is NO. There are no foods that can change your genetically set metabolic rate. Some agents like caffeine or stimulant medications can only briefly, very temporarily and slightly increase your current metabolism, but then after stopping them, the metabolic rate returns to your normal rate. Marketing and advertising promote agents that can burn fat quickly and without effort,

Obesity is a complex biological and socioeconomic condition that causes overweight individuals’ unnecessary pain, disability, low self-esteem and increased medical expenses. The use of groundbreaking medications, GLP-1s, can dramatically help with weight loss, but their use does not necessarily mean that they must be used for extended periods of time, such as months or years. However, long term weight management requires long term changes in one’s eating behaviors. This is a

While obesity is associated with many chronic metabolic diseases, it is also linked to the development and progression of numerous cancers. Overweight and obesity are associated with higher rates of cancer and account for 10% of new cancers each year in the United States. Obesity is linked with 12 types of cancers; colorectal, endometrial, postmenopausal breast, gallbladder, kidney, liver, esophagus, ovarian, pancreas, multiple myeloma and thyroid cancers. When fat cells beco

Weight loss is hard and keeping it off is even harder. This is where GLP-1 medications can be of great help to change an individual’s perception about food and leave the obsessive cravings behind. It is a tool to get started and gain the inspiration to become motivated and make the necessary lifestyle eating behavioral changes necessary for weight loss. But GLP-1s are tools that are now also being used to treat many other chronic diseases in addition to weight loss. A reducti

Some of my patients believe that their weight gain and/or slow weight loss is caused by an excess amount of the adrenal hormone cortisol. But for the great majority of patients, this is not the case. Cortisol is a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands, and is increased in the rare case of the adrenal disease known as Cushing’s Syndrome or Cushing’s Disease, and to a lesser degree by increased levels of chronic stress. Cortisol hormone, known as the stress hormone, helps the

Weight Loss Fads and Myths: Many of my patients ask, ‘Is my Inability to lose weight caused by a low metabolic rate and a dysfunctional thyroid metabolism’? No, this is not the case. One very common metabolism myth is that a weight gain is caused by a dysfunctional and reduced metabolism. One’s metabolic rate is fixed and genetically determined at birth. The metabolic rate does not change and a suspected dysfunctionally low metabolic rate, such as with a low thyroid hormone l

A patient of mine asked about losing her hair while on a GLP-1 medication for weight loss. After about 7 months she started to notice a progressive thinning and gradual loss of her hair. I told her that along with fat loss, the GLP-1 medications are related, indirectly, to the loss of 2 other body tissues: hair and lean muscle. GLP-1’s act by decreasing hunger and increasing a sense of fullness that causes a reduced food intake that results in decreased intake of carbohydrate

The recent surge in the use of the GLP-1 injection medications have shown how effective these agents can be , safe (at least in the short term), and very effective but very expensive. At present, there are no established guidelines for how long these medications can be used. Present potential side effects may involve the digestive track, causing nausea, vomiting, constipation, and abdominal discomfort; the pancreas, potentially causing pancreatitis a serious inflammation of t

It is now evident that obesity is recognized as a medical disease with serious long-term consequences, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. Fortunately, new obesity treatments are being developed more quickly to be safer and more effective than earlier treatments. But there are many questions about these newer anti-obesity medications, such as Semaglutide, Tirzepatide, Rybelsus and Retatrutide etc. that need to be answered by knowledgeable and experienced

It is now more evident that obesity is a serious chronic condition that adversely affects individuals and their families and has the potential to bankrupt our health care system. The increasing rates of obesity are anticipated, along with its treatment costs, to grow to be 35% higher by 2035. However, since weight loss through lifestyle changes are seen to be ineffective solutions, and bariatric surgery is too expensive and not feasible for most patients’ anti-obesity medicat

What is missing with Ozempic and the Ozempic-like medications for the treatment of the overweight condition? These GLP-1, Glucagon Like Peptide class of medications, offer a medicalized treatment for the overweight condition that is accepted to be safe and very effective. Initial side effects may include nausea, vomiting and constipation, but later potential adverse effects such as gall bladder disease, pancreatitis and a rare form of thyroid cancer are still of some concern.

Recently a new twist on an old diet format has resurrected itself once again, a combination of the keto diet and the apple cider vinegar diet. Simply stated: there is no medical, scientific, or clinical data to show that of and by itself apple cider vinegar helps with weight loss. In fact, an individual’s stomach contains a very strong acid, hydrochloric acid, which rapidly breaks down any food and drinks into its basic components. This means that any ingested products, like

When I first started to treat overweight and obese patients at the U.C.L.A. Diabetic Clinic years ago there was little interest or concern for fat people. At that time obesity wasn’t recognized and accepted as a disease and there were few treatments or programs and even fewer physicians who wanted to be involved in the treatment of obese patients. Rates of failure were high and morale among patients and physicians was low. Today the term overweight individuals, rather than

Obesity is a major public health problem that is responsible for increasing numbers of disabling and destructive medical conditions such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, osteoarthritis and numerous cancers. Currently about 75% of the American population is overweight or obese, 20% of our children are obese and the global rates of obesity have tripled since 1975. The social determents of health (socio-economic status, environment, education, dysfunctional famil

Numerous clinical studies have repeatedly shown that decreasing hours of quality sleep are associated with an increasing desire for larger food portions and increased quantities of high carbohydrate/high refined sugar snacks and drinks. A new research study shows evidence linking the lack of sleep to an increase in abdominal obesity and visceral, belly, fat. Specifically, it was reported that the expansion of abdominal fat tissue occurred as a function of the amount of sleep

I recently saw a patient who weighed about 280 pounds, at least 100 pounds overweight who was on chronic renal dialysis. When I asked why he had end stage kidney failure requiring dialysis I expected to hear about obesity related diabetes having destroyed his kidneys. But I was surprised to learn that it was because of hypertension. I was surprised because most hypertension can be controlled and managed with effective blood pressure medication. I asked why his condition, whic

Intermittent Fasting (IF) is a popular and trendy program now in fashion for weight loss. A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported on the benefits and risks from using IF for weight loss and as a help for managing type 2 diabetes. IF is defined as “ time restricted feeding” or fasting on alternative days or during 1-4 days of the week, with only water, juice, or bone broth and no more than 700 calories on fasting days”. But to date, IF, e

There is some new clinical research on the long-term effects of COVID infection. Some of the ‘long haul’ post infection complications have been documented as brain function complications such as ‘brain fog’ decreased memory, decreased cognitive ability and long-lasting fatigue and muscle weakness. Now some new clinical research, as was presented in the medical journal The Lancet, reports that a new post COVID infection complication is an increased association with new cases o

To lose weight most individuals know what to do, but don’t do it. Clinical studies show that the person’s lifestyle eating behavior is just as important, if not more so, than the type and amount of food eaten. Fat, protein. carbohydrate, and alcohol calories all matter and all count, a diet of one type is, in the long run, no better than a diet emphasizing another type. Research clinical studies repeatedly show that all diets work when you stay on them and all diets fail when