To drop many pounds, in a short time and with the smallest effort can be the dream of a person with an important weight. The treatments that occurred in recent years can have this effect, but the decision to initiate the treatment should return to the doctor, after the rigorous evaluation of the situation of each individual patient.
Drug treatment should be doubled by a healthy photo lifestyle: Pixabay
“Weight loss is a complex process, influenced by genetic, metabolic and behavioral factors. For patients with obesity, the ideal strategy includes changing the lifestyle, but sometimes a drug treatment is necessary ”, Explains the primary doctor diabetes and nutrition diseases Anca Roman. Prior to prescribing an anti-obsient treatment, the medical history and the patient’s goals are analyzed, and everything is complemented by medical investigations.
What treatment options exist
The current drug treatment options include three solutions. The newest acts on appetite, lowering appetite. At the same time, this type of treatment – agonists of GLP -1 receptors – improves glycemic control, being used in type 2 diabetes.
Two other options, currently used more and more rarely, are: inhibitors of norepinephrine and dopamine recapture, which help reduce food intake in the central nervous system and fat absorption blockers, which reduce lipid absorption at the intestinal level.
“These therapies do not replace a healthy lifestyle, But they can be a real help for eligible patients. Any treatment should be initiated under the supervision of a specialist, with careful monitoring ”, explains Dr. Roman.
How do the drugs work
The newly defiled treatments on the market are practically hormones in the classes of increments, which are secreted at the intestinal level and normally, only that they are metabolized very quickly, having a short time in the body. “And then these analogues have been made to have a prolonged action and practically decrease the feeling of hunger, to increase the feeling of satiety and lose weight. I slow down gastric emptying, the food remains more in the stomach and we are less hungry and at a higher period, they also have cardiac protection, they also have protection on the adipose tissue ”, explains the doctor how this treatment works.
The effects are above those of Ozempic treatment (the drug used for diabetes, but also for obesity, and withdrawn during the last year from the Romanian market). “As an effect, the weight loss is similar to bariatric surgery”says the doctor Anca Roman.
With all the benefits that these treatments have, they are not recommended from the start of patients who seek weight loss. The doctor decides according to the degree of obesity and the patient’s comorbidities.
“If it is a patient with morbid obesity, with diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, a stroke, we initiate the medication, that is, in parallel with the diet, to help it a little. If it is a patient with obesity the first degree, we try, I personally try, with the initial diet and see with what effects. Diet, sports, depending on comorbidities and body mass index ”adds the doctor.
The patient is explained exactly the purpose of the treatment, namely to help him achieve a significant weight loss, but it is ideal for the medication to be gradually withdrawn, and the progress obtained is maintained by approaching a healthy lifestyle. “I tell them: only because we take treatment it does not mean that we do not ever keep the regime, or that we eat what we want”, says Dr. Roman.
Quite many patients get a significant weight loss based on the caloric deficit, but as soon as they return to the old habits, in the absence of treatment, the kilograms gather.
“There are many patients who have taken without a prescription”
The mirage of quick, effortless weight loss led many patients to decisions that could cost them enormously. “Many took without a prescription and were people who did not tolerate them, they felt bad. They did not do their analysis, they did not know that they had biliary lithiasis and they did biliary colic, because the treatment can precipitate the biliary colic. But we carry out an abdominal ultrasound, analyzes, a complete set of investigations before we decide to start treatment ”, stressed the doctor what can happen. Another complication may occur in an increased level of triglycerides, when the patient risks acute pancreatitis – a serious condition, which can even lead to death.
“We do not initiate if we see that triglycerides are large. We start a diet, treat triglycerides, call them for analysis again and when triglycerides have been normalized, we start treatment ”, Dr. Anca Roman exposed what is the correct conduct.
It is also important that the weight loss is monitored by the nutritionist because they can lower not only the kilograms, but also the muscle mass, and then there are no reasons for joy. “You lose weight, but in fact you lose what you don’t have to lose. And for this reason you have to go to a doctor, a nutritionist, to put them on a special scales, to see -they have decreased from the muscle mass, from the fat mass -to check what effects it produces in the body ”, complete the doctor.
The nutritionist, on the other hand, may also recommend a visit to the psychologist, already proven that in collaboration with the psychologist the results obtained by the patients are much better. More difficult, says Dr. Roman, it is to make patients understand the role of the psychologist/psychotherapist, because there are still people who refuse such a discussion, because “I am not crazy”.
“And explain them. It’s not crazy, it’s about eating stress or you have a certain situation you can’t talk to me. And it is normal not to be able to, because I am not a specialist, I do not know what to say, I do not know what tips to give them. I had patients who went to the psychologist and it was very good. I had a patient who thinks it was on all the possible weight loss medication and nothing worked, and after a few therapy sessions it already decreased 4 kg ”said the doctor.
