Brain rewiring offers slim hope for obesity epidemic

GOOD news on obesity is rare, so small wonder that the latest forecasts from the US were reported with a positive spin. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, estimates that 42 per cent of Americans will be obese by 2030, up from 36 per cent today. That is a strange sort of good news - until you compare it with earlier, even worse, projections.

Such small successes do not disguise the fact that obesity remains a huge public health problem that seems immune to every intervention.

All except one, that is. Weight-loss surgery has a success rate that diets, drugs and public awareness campaigns can only dream of.

Again, that is a strange sort of good news. Surgery is a last resort and yet it offers glimmers of genuine hope. It seems it may work less by re-plumbing the gut than by rewiring the brain (see "Change your stomach, change your brain"). Understanding these side effects could open the door to new drug treatments.

The history of weight-loss medicine is littered with failures so perhaps this is the start of another. When the prognosis is so bad, though, any sliver of optimism is light relief.

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