What can a Doctor do?
A doctor can:
- Help you change your habits.
- Prescribe medication for overweight.
- Refer you to surgical treatment.
If you find it hard to increase your physical activity and eat a diet low on calories you can get help from a doctor. A doctor can help you set goals and strengthen your motivation – often with a starting point in the table of balance. The doctor and the staff are often educated in helping you with your diet. Those medical remedies that is available today for the treatment of obesity leads to a weight loss of 3-7 kg aside from what you can achieve from changing your lifestyle. However, like any other medication they can have side effects.
Is a weight loss of 3-7 kg that interesting? Yes, definitely! This weight loss can be added to what is achieved through changing your diet and exercise. Changes in lifestyle lead to an average weight loss of 5-8% after treatment of one year and with medication another 2-4% is lost, a total of 7-12%.
Some people lose more weight.
Before a doctor prescribes medication for treatment of overweight, typically, 3-6 months passes where you try to lose weight by changing your habits. If you have not lost a satisfactory amount within that period, a doctor can prescribe medication that can promote weight loss.
The goal is to lose 1 kg. a week or achieve a weight loss of 10% of the starting weight.
You can talk to your doctor about whether medicinal treatment can be a possibility for you, and in that case, what kind of preparation is more appropriate.
If change in diet and medicinal treatment have not had sufficiently lasting effect, your doctor can refer you to surgery, if you meet the criteria for this. Surgical treatment is considered with patients ranging 25-60 years or with BMI >50 or BMI >35 while suffering from diabetes or a weak heart. A lot of overweight people cannot be offered surgery because of health reasons. If you are offered surgery you should be minded on lasting changes in lifestyle. Within the last few years, there has been a rising demand for surgical treatment. Bariatric surgery is connected to risk and side effects but has on the other hand shown good results in relation to lasting weight loss.