Obesity Syndrome: The real weight problem

The traditional focus of many weight loss ‘experts’ is on losing weight. That is, the answer to obesity and all its related health problems is best ‘treated’ by reducing body weight. Some ‘experts’ rightly point out that excess fat is what should be gotten rid of.

I’ve read many online articles championing the virtues of exercise to lose fat. Pretty much all of them fail to take into account why the excess fat exists. In fact, a large proportion of the weight loss industry seems not to understand why excess fat accumulates in the first place.

You see, obesity is not the real problem!

Obesity (excess stored fat) is a physical symptom of a chemical change that has already occurred in the body. It is this chemical change which is the problem and which if left unaddressed, means that every time you successfully shed excess fat, it returns (with ‘friends’). There are copious scientific studies (references below) which confirm that obesity is characterised by chemical abnormalities, only nobody seems yet to quite understand what is causing them.

Let’s refer to it as Obesity Syndrome.

In much the same way that Metabolic Syndrome is characterised by several specific negative health factors, so Obesity Syndrome is characterised by the following:

• Hyposomatotropism (Growth Hormone deficiency)
• Hyperinsulinemia (over-reactive insulin)

The symptoms include:

• Excess body fat – especially truncal
• Cravings – especially for sugars and carbohydrates
• Predisposition to Hyper or Hypo-glycaemia

It appears that Obesity Syndrome is chronic, meaning once a person has it, they have it for life. This explains why we tend to regain weight after shedding it.

For now, there are no clear answers on the cause of Obesity Syndrome. Despite all the best intentions of the past few decades, obesity rates continue to climb in developed countries globally, which suggests that it is lifestyle related. However as we have commented previously, if obesity were simply the result of eating too much food and lack of exercise, the obesity epidemic would no longer be an epidemic and the statistics would have started dropping long ago. There is scarcely an overweight person alive that has not tried to eat less and exercise more. If it were that simple, the problem would be manageable.

I have my own theories about the lifestyle contributors to the chemical change that characterises Obesity Syndrome, but more of that in a future blog. Based on observation of the thousands of clients that came through my weight management clinic, I do not believe that a healthy, normal weight person by increasing their volume of food and reducing exercise will automatically result in obesity. Stay tuned to find out why.

Scientific studies indicating a hormonal cause of obesity:

Mukherjee A, Murray RD, Shalet SM, Impact of growth hormone status on body composition and the skeleton, 2004, Department of Endocrinology, Christie Hospital, Manchester, UK

Komorowski JM, Pawlikowski M. Relationship between insulin and somatotropin in obesity. Endokrinologie. Apr 1979; 73(2):209-13

Meistas MT, Foster GV, Margolis S, Kowarski AA, Integrated concentrations of growth hormone, insulin, C-peptide and prolactin in human obesity, Metabolism, Dec 1982, 31(12):1224-8

Ratzmann KP, Gottschling HD, Abnormal growth hormone response in obesity with normal carbohydrate tolerance and normal thyroid function, Endokrinologie. May 1978; 72(2):149-54

Slavnov VN, Epshtein EV, Somatotrophic, thyrotrophic and adrenocorticotrophic functions of the anterior pituitary in obesity, Endocrinologie. Jul-Sep 1977; 15(3):213-8