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Industry: Email Alert RSS FeedNo evidence that doctors help the obese
OB/GYN News, Nov 15, 2005 by F. Scott Chilcott
Dr. Robert F. Kushner states that obesity remains underdiagnosed and undertreated by most physicians ("Doctor, We Have a Problem," June 15, 2005, p. 8).
When I couple this advice with other, ever-increasing advice to practice "evidence-based medicine," I have a problem.
I am unable to find any evidence of a program (other than surgery) where individual A (me) helps individual B (the obese patient) lose weight and keep it off for more than 5, 10, or 15 years--or for the rest of his or her life. If Dr. Kushner has evidence to show that a physician can accomplish this, perhaps he could share it with the rest of us.
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My experience to this point (40 years) is that the obese patients who do lose weight and keep it off do so entirely on their own.
Dr. Kushner declined to reply.
F. Scott Chilcott, M.D.
Santa Rosa, Calif.
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