Obesity: Current Approaches
W. P. T. James, S. W. ParkerDr. Marks puts forward an intriguing view of how high fat diets might mediate their effects in the susceptible individual by producing an exaggerated response in gastric inhibitory peptide and there is then a series of articles on different aspects of management. The search for new thermogenic drugs as distinct from anorectic agents is certainly an emergIng phenomenon but with so much experience of anorectic drugs one must necessarily be cautious about their acceptability, particularly as it is increasingly recognized that it is the longterm management of obesity which is of fundamental importance to the health of the patient.
Very low calorie diets are dealt with only brieny in the discussion but this is certainly an increasingly popular therapy with new folmlulatjons providing much greater reassurance of safety than the earlier nutritionally- inadequate formulations being produced, particularly in the United States. As patients struggle to conform to the dietary suggestions of physicians, dietitians and commercial group leaders, they are assailed by a number of physiological and psychological problems which Professor Crisp has brought out very elegantly in his chapter.
One cannot claim that this book highlights a major advance in our understanding of the management of obesity, but it does describe the steady evolution of knowledge and the improvement in our ability to help patients who hitherto have been much neglected by the medical profession.