I’m not fat – I have a disease!
Hooray! After 27 years of suffering through being Really Really Fat I have FINALLY been given the answer I was looking for - it is NOT my fault and my fatness is a disease with a name!
No, it's not diabetes or hypothyroidism. Those have been around for many years and all Really Really Fat people have been tested for those at least twice in their lives. The new disease is Metabolic Syndrome. It's symptoms are:
- Obesity (particularly around the waist)
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Insulin resistance
The breakthrough came last December when her new endocrinologist diagnosed her with something called metabolic syndrome. She'd never heard of it. As she Googled to learn more, her chronic ailments – the weight, the high blood pressure, the lack of energy – started to make sense. They even seemed treatable. She's now on Glucophage and Avandia (which both regulate blood sugar) and has lost 20 pounds by cutting out carbohydrates. "Getting a diagnosis was a relief," Cunningham says. "I have hope now, whereas I didn't have any before."Wow ok so you have....the beginnings of Type II diabetes and eat too much sugar and starch. That's pretty much what Dr. Robert Atkins was telling the world for 30 years before he died in 2003. Some people - not all people, but a good chunk of them - have bodies that just can't deal with insulin-raising carbs. Some are diabetic, some are just plain fat. People went berzerk over this claim. Doctors yelled and screamed, scientists wagged fingers. Me, I lost 90 lbs. But fuck all of that healthy eating stuff. I mean, "going on Atkins" means cutting our sugar and starch, eating more low-sugar fruits and veg, and eating whole grains. Yeah, and eating meat too (but not gobs of butter rolled in bacon smothered in cheese). Why should I have to eat like that if there's a PILL that will "cure" me of my new-found disease? You bet your sweet bippy there's a pill, too. Now that Atkins has died things have gotten awful skeevy on the "low carb" frontier. His company is pretty much a manufactured crap food warehouse now. Doctors and scientists are taking his ideas seriously now. But instead of having to claim he was right while he was alive and giving people the non-pharmaceutical way to fight your body's stupidity, they waited until he was dead so there'd be no one around to tell people "just stop eating sugar" so they could instead say "try this magic pill." The new pill is rimonabant. So far, human trials have shown that the only side effects are depression and anxiety. But those also happen to be side effects of being Really Really Fat. So what's the harm? It doesn't quite matter, because now Big Pharma has a disease and a pill to combat this disease. Without a disease, HMOs aren't likely to let you get the pill. And like any drug, doctors are going to be eventually pushed into prescribing it - to quell the pushy pharm reps and to quell their fatass patients who say "nothing I do works." I will come clean and say that while I did lose 90 lbs, I am still fat. I lost 90 and put back on 50 (truth be told, I was still fat after losing 90). Why? Well my body sucks. It's high maintenence. And I am too lazy to maintain it. It's my lot in life that I have a high maintenence body. Some do, some don't. I'm living proof that "get up off your butt and move" doesn't really mean the same for everyone. I could eat and move the same as someone else and probably still be fat. But I recognize the difference. I do have to watch what I eat and I do have to bust my ass. C'est la vie. I didn't gain weight because what I did didn't work for me. I gained weight because I stopped doing what worked for me. Duh. So now it seems that I have a choice. Get back on that high-intensity workout regimen again, or go with the "Metabolic Syndrome" wave and get a pill to fix me. I don't think I'm ready to give up the fight just yet. Maybe it's the Puritan in me that feels like I should be punishing myself for my "failing" instead of taking the insta-cure. The lack of serious side effects (such as bleeding from the eyes and exploding diarrhea) is pretty tempting if you consider some of the side effects of previous "fat" drugs like uh...speed and phen-phen. All you get is some depression (which, like I said, most of "us" already have). But the side effects of ass-kicking exercise are lack of depression and a good night's sleep. Perhaps some weight loss along the way. For now, I'll stick with that and not let myself be pigeonholed into some "disease" which has caused my "affliction." What would you do it you could take a pill and cure your "fat"? Would you do it? Would you even believe it could be possible? Check with me in 20 years, though. If I'm in my late 40's and still fat and single, perhaps I will have changed my mind.
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TLDNR
October 20th, 2006 at 10:04 am
I thought that was an interesting post. Probably b/c I often deal w/ health info at work and partially b/c I’m a former fatso. You know, 7% of the US population has diabetes (http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-statistics.jsp)
October 20th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
I just read an interesting article about the disingenuous use of BMI to determine obesity and the supposed health problems that come with it. The authors stated that when you look at the studies, a certain level of morbid obesity brings on health problems, but at levels normally defined as “obese” there are no particular health risks. The health risks come from being sedentary and having a poor diet. If one is overweight, but active, they are at less risk of illness than a thin person who is inactive. It is only in the sense that obesity supposedly correlates with inactivity that obesity causes health problems. But this important distinction is blurred in federal policy and “common sense.” If I can find the article, I will blog about it, it was really interesting.
October 20th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
To comment on Todd’s comment….
BMI IS quite a crock, at least from the little I’ve been able to understand it (a hard-and-fast calculationthat is the same for everyone). Using that as a calculator for obesity is a joke too, but many many professionals do it.
I actually DON’T have high blood pressure (which isn’t clear from my post) even though I am really overweight. And at many many points in the last 5 years of my life or so I was more active than most people – thin or fat. BMI and actual weight be damned – I am pretty darn healthy when at my physical peak.
The definition of “obesity” is getting blurry. The CAUSE of obesity is getting blurry. The population of obese Americans is getting blurry too. Adding another “syndrome” to the mix will make it very hard for most people to come to the right conclusion for how they need to manage their body and become actually healthy. Big Pharma certainlly isn’t here to help.
October 20th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
You know, I am all in favor of big pharma stepping in and creating the magic pill for everything. God help us if somebody somewhere actually has to take responsibility for their own actions.
October 20th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
By the by .. I’m not sure if this will be the same for you .. but I find it damn amusing that three out of the four ads on this page are for weight loss secrets.
October 20th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Is there a pill for rampant stupidity, yet? Because I have a great test market for it at The Bank. Oh, and i think that the ads find keyworks in your article to pick the adverstiments that you see.
October 20th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
The more I read about BMI, the more I think it’s not the best measure. I think the reason it’s so commonly used is that it is slightly better than weight alone, is very easy to measure, and correlates with health problems on the high and low ends.
There are other measures that correlate with health problems, but many are more diffcult to measure. So it’s laziness.
October 20th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
To add to the above the situation between Diabetes and High Blood Pressure is extremely confusing to say the least.
One of the major problems that causes the most confusion would appear to be symptoms. This may sound like an obvious statement but in some cases symptoms that may lead you to question whether you might be a prime candidate for Diabetes (Type II at least) are actually side effects of medication taken for High Blood Pressure.
For example, I have recently just changed my medication and have moved from taking Amlodipine which is a Calcium Channel Blocker and was giving me several side effects which for about 3 Months made me convinced I was suffering from late onset Diabetes. I have been moved onto an ACE inhibitor which (as it turned out I hadn’t been positively diagnosed with Diabetes) is also better for people who have Kidney problems.
Another potential banana skin is that if you are prescribed a thiazide diuretic for your HBP this can also (as the name suggests) cause side effects.
Just my 2p and hope this helps. I am about to add a section on my site (http://www.livingwithhighbloodpressure.net) which will go into slightly more detail the connection , effects and treatment of High Blood Pressure and Diabetes
December 14th, 2006 at 10:45 am
How fat is too fat? Is a 3 month reserve not something that is to be expected? A non-nursing woman @2000 calories per day needs 20kg of fat to survive a winter without food, as no doubt many of our ancestors have had to at times. You do the math for the case of a woman who has a baby or toddlers she needs to feed, and suddenly the fat stone age earth mother doesn’t look quite as uselessly fat as she is — the figurine could well have been a yardstick for the ideal figure to enter the winter months with.
May 6th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Well, the FDA did not approve Rimonabant (Acomplia). Grrrrrr. But it is approved in the EU, and available for about US$2.63 a pill.
It’s weird that the FDA would take this stance because of a potential side effect of depression. First of all, lots of drugs on the market are known to cause depression (including anti-depressants!). Secondly, you have to wonder how much of the depression is cause by the drug and how much from being overweight.
June 20th, 2007 at 12:44 pm