Research published in The Lancet has recommended 
a change in how health services view treatment of obesity – that the target should be lifelong health gain rather than weight loss.
Congratulations to co-author of the research paper “Obesity in adults”, UCD School of Medicine’s Professor of Chemical Pathology, Prof Carel le Roux and his international collaborators Prof Ildiko Lingvay, Dr Ricardo Cohen, Dr Priya Sumithran on their recent publication in the scientific journal, The Lancet. Prof le Roux said the paper shows obesity should not be measured in kilograms, but in “improvements in health and quality of life”.
Obesity has increased in prevalence worldwide and WHO has declared it a global epidemic. Population-level preventive interventions have been insufficient to slow down this trajectory. Obesity is a complex, heterogeneous, chronic, and progressive disease, which substantially affects health, quality of life, and mortality. Lifestyle and behavioural interventions are key components of obesity management; however, when used alone, they provide substantial and durable response in a minority of people. Bariatric (metabolic) surgery remains the most effective and durable treatment, with proven benefits beyond weight loss, including for cardiovascular and renal health, and decreased rates of obesity-related cancers and mortality. Considerable progress has been made in the development of pharmacological agents that approach the weight loss efficacy of metabolic surgery, and relevant outcome data related to these agents' use are accumulating. However, all treatment approaches to obesity have been vastly underutilised.
To view the paper in The Lancet, please see: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01210-8