Question by MT: What’s going on with OBs running weight loss centers?
Over the past year or two, I keep hearing about OBGYNs running weight loss centers?
What does diet have to do with gynocology? I mean, sure it’s medicine and diet impacts health, but this would make more sense to see in a cardiologist’s office.
I assume it’s all about money, but I wondered if anyone else has noticed this?
Best answer:
Answer by Dr.Kim Baptista LAc DAc
Is it all about money? Yes and no. Weight loss is a draw when you consider that Americans spent $ 35 Billion on diet and weight loss products in 2006 (estimates are that this year will be $ 40 billion).
That said, weight is DIRECTLY controlled by hormones, so it kinda sorta would fall into the category of a GYN, although I don’t think that’s the motivation, and ironically, as far as I can tell, I haven’t seen any of them actually address the problem.
The MD supervised weight loss programs I’ve seen fall into a few different categories:
1. B 12 shots and a lowfat/low cal diet
2. amphetamines and a lowfat/low cal diet
3. HCG shots and a very very low cal/low fat diet.
All three of these programs will produce rapid temporary weight loss. I have been known to suggest an MD in my area who uses B12 shots to women trying to get into a wedding gown in 2 months, or who are getting ready to attend a class reunion in 3 months who want a “quick fix” and don’t care about the long term consequences.
I have patients in my office literally every single day who have done each of these programs — some have done all of them — reached their goal weights, went off the program onto “maintenance,” gained back every pound plus 10 – 30%, and wound up with their thyroids, livers, and/or adrenal glands shot, feeling 10 years older, and miserable.
People have this idea that “medically supervised” weight loss programs are somehow superior, because a “real doctor” is running them. The only problem with this is that MDs get exactly 3 clock hours of training in Nutrition in medical school. Unless they went back to graduate school after getting their medical license (highly unlikely) to study Nutrition, they know nothing about food or nutrition.
Going to an MD to ask about how to lose weight is like going to the best plumber in the country and asking him to remodel your house and do all of the interior decorating himself. Since he’s such a great plumber, of course it would make perfect sense to choose him as your interior decorator!
Have you looked at MDs lately? They are typically over-weight (ironically, especially the bariatric physicians — if they have the answer, then why are they so fat?), drinking diet soda . . .
Cardiologists know about hearts — not about food. The cardiologists in my area refer their patients to me for weight loss, because that is my specialty, and they’ve had enough of their patients find me on their own to see the results . . .
It would be great if the ob/gyns understood anything about nutrition, and how food affects hormones, and that different hormonal weaknesses require different diet and exercise plans to correct them. The 53 year old man who looks like he is having twins has completely different nutritional and exercise requirements than the apple shaped 30 year old female with 2 children and a hysterectomy.
None of the MDs, unless they have separate training in Nutrition, are qualified to counsel people on their diet. My father went on an Atkins diet because his cardiologist told him to when he was 50 years old, with the instruction to stay on the diet until he lost 60 lbs, because being overweight was “unhealthy.” My father religiously followed the Atkins diet, and only lost 58 pounds — because he died at age 51, just 2 pounds short of his “goal weight.” From the diet. It was absolutely the wrong diet for his nutritional needs, and it killed him, but he was quite thin in his coffin. (This is why I became a weight loss specialist — to prevent the same thing happening to as many people as I can.)
I’m not saying that the Atkins Diet is wrong for everyone — just for certain body/hormone/metabolic types. There are others who do fine on an Atkins Diet. The problem is that an MD is not qualified to determine which people belong on which diets, because they don’t know anything about food or nutrition or how food can heal a body or make it worse (or kill it). I wouldn’t ask an MD to service the Space Shuttle either. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a great MD in his specialty. No one in their right mind would see an eye doctor to have open heart surgery, or a pulmonologist (lung doctor) to have a prostate resection. Why would you see any of them to counsel you on nutrition? It isn’t the “area” of any of them.
http://www.healingdaily.com/Doctors-Are-The-Third-Leading-Cause-of-Death-in-the-US.htm
Why though, would ob/gyns start pedalling weight loss programs, with no training or background in nutrition or weight loss? Seems to me that this could be a good reason . . .
“The high cost of malpractice premiums is beginning to lead providers to drop or reduce obstetrical services. Our study presented evidence that high malpractice premiums affect where new obstetricians are locating and it may affect the supply in the future,” says Scott B. Ransom, D.O., M.B.A., M.P.H., associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the U-M Medical School and of hea
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