Morbid Obesity is a life-threatening condition when your current weight exceeds your ‘ideal weight’ by 100 lbs or your BMI is over 40. Your ‘ideal weight’ is very subjective. Most medical professionals use Body Mass Index calculations to determine your ideal weight.
How is Morbid Obesity Life Threatening?
Morbid Obesity doesn’t actually kill you. Its one of the few diseases where the comorbidities associated with the disease kills. When you are morbidly obese you are are more likely to be affected by the diseases below:
- Cancer Gall Bladder Disease
- Type 2 Diabetes
- High Blood Pressure
- Stroke
- Depression
- High Cholesterol
- Congestive Heart Failure
- And Many More…
What Causes Morbid Obesity?
Morbid Obesity is caused when your caloric intake exceeds your caloric expenditure. Excess calories are turned into fat and stored in the subcutaneous tissue and adipose tissue surrounding organs. This excess fat is responsible for the associated diseases listed above.
Treatment For Morbid Obesity
Diet and exercise are the primary treatments for morbidly obese patients. However, by the time someone is morbidly obese, diet and exercise have typically proven ineffective or unsustainable.
Medications
Medications can offer some help for the morbidly obese patient. Some prescription drugs have shown to produce weight loss between 5 and 10 lbs. However, the weight is regained if the medication is stopped. Ask your primary care physician about the latest FDA approved weight loss medications.
Surgery
The final option is obesity surgery. Typically, these weight loss surgeries produce sustainable weight loss by surgically altering the bodies ability to absorb food or by restricting the amount of food the stomach can take. In procedures like gastric bypass surgery both malabsorption and restriction are incurred.
Did You Know?
Most insurance companies cover weight loss surgery.
Most obesity surgeries are effective and safe in the hands of an experienced bariatric surgeon. Below is a list of typical weight loss procedures.
