Diet Drugs Work: Why Won't Doctors Prescribe Them? : The New Yorker: " . . . Obesity experts with whom I spoke tended to be more optimistic than other physicians about the possibility that obesity can be treated successfully and that the obesity epidemic will be curbed. They point to exciting new research—for example, the finding that an alteration in gut bacteria, rather than mechanical shrinking of the stomach or intestine, may be what causes weight loss after gastric bypass. This raises the possibility that the benefits of surgery might become available without the surgery itself. They also note that public-health efforts seem to be reducing childhood obesity, even in poor communities. But they remain concerned that despite such promising developments, many physicians still don’t see obesity the way they do: as a serious, often preventable disease that requires intensive and lifelong treatment with a combination of diet, exercise, behavioral modification, surgery, and, potentially, drugs. Louis Aronne thinks this will change as more physicians enter the field of obesity medicine, the physiology of obesity is better understood, and more effective treatment options become available. He likens the current attitude toward obesity to the prevailing attitude toward mental illness years ago. Aronne remembers, during his medical training, seeing psychotic patients warehoused and sedated, treated as less than human. He predicts that, one day, “some doctors are going to look back at severely obese patients and say, ‘What the hell was I thinking when I didn’t do anything to help them? How wrong could I have been?’... ” (read more at link above)
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