Head of Department of Medicine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), Dr. Mike Krimholtz.
If you can treat obesity, cases of diabetes and hypertension rates will be cut massively.
Head of Department of Medicine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), Dr Mike Krimholtz made this comment during his presentation at the QEH’s World Kidney Day Seminar held earlier last week.
The medical professional highlighted the drugs being used to treat obesity, pointing out that what is being used will cause weight loss of five or ten per cent of a patient’s body mass. However, he added that while these will help control weight, these drugs are expensive.
Food portions too large
Earlier, Dr. Krimholtz commented on the effectiveness of exercise, but also spoke about diet and the challenge of large food portion sizes being served in Barbados. He said that obesity is more prevalent with two-thirds of the population being overweight.
“There are at least as many people who have diabetes or are about to get it, than have it already, ” said Dr. Krimholtz.
For women, physical activity is a major problem in Barbados, said the Head of Medicine. He explained that people globally are eating lots of fat and not eating healthy foods.
A look at diabetes reversal
Making reference to international research on diabetes, he noted that with a group of three hundred overweight persons with diabetes, medication was stopped and they were given a meal replacement for three months. The regular meals were reintroduced and persons lost weight. He revealed that the experiment resulted in half of the participants reversing their diabetes.
Dr. Krimholtz therefore said that there is a correlation between weight loss and diabetes reversal.
Over the last eighteen months at the QEH, the Head of Medicine revealed that in their own diabetes reversal study, there are 25 persons who do not have diabetes any longer. He also added that for everyone who does not have diabetes, there are two to three persons who have diabetes but do not need medication and their condition is well controlled.
The diabetologist said that the only problem is that they do not know if these individuals will get diabetes again ten years later.