How Deadly Is Obesity, Really?
Many of my patients came to their first visit in the clinic and told me they were “a ticking time bomb.” Men, especially, seemed to have a view of themselves as a collection of risks that, left unchecked, would, without fail, cause them to have an early heart attack. When I asked them about how dangerous obesity, specifically, was to them, many patients would tell me that it can take ten or twenty years off their life…unless I could help them. Which, of course, was why they’d come to see me.In some cases, I agreed with them. They were thirty years old, weighed 400 pounds and had a medication list like a nursing home patient. Those guys, I worried about. But many of my weight management patients were 50-100 pounds overweight at age 50 and on just a couple medicines. read more