Listen to the Folks.

The FDA has approved two new drugs for weight loss. They are supposed to work well with diet and exercise. Of course, this is NOT for the morbidly obese. If they are that fat, they had better have bariatric surgery before doing anything. (Ka-ching, Ka-ching! Anyone else hear that?)

Now, I had a couple of different reactions to this. According to my doctors and the doctors of everyone I know, the way to lose weight is "diet and exercise."Nothing else. Oh, if you have metabolism issues, they'll prescribe stuff to help with those, but you want to lose weight -- Diet and exercise. And if you don't lose weight, you aren't dieting or exercising. Never mind Tuesday's heat stroke or Friday's collapse -- if you aren't losing weight, you aren't exercising or dieting. Not even if your stomach is complaining loudly because of its emptiness.

There's a lot of things going on in obesity studies and research, and a lot of it is good. A drug or two that will kick start a dieter over a plateau isn't a bad thing. Bariatric surgery for someone who eats until too full is a good thing. It's not going to help much with someone who doesn't eat all that much to start with. Or a grazer.

Until doctors and nutritionists are able to look beyond this whole "Diet and Exercise" combo, they are not going to make any great inroads in battling the obesity "epidemic'.

The old folks had it right. Some folks are born to be fat. It's in their genes. No, that's not just an excuse. (There have been some intriguing research and discoveries into fat genes.) It's not a stereotype, either. Lately research is finding all sorts of things more prevalent among certain ethnicities, even when environment is not a factor.

Treat the genetic type, and how that body works, and you'll be abler to manage the weight.

One concern that's twinned with the obesity concern is that it is the cause or related to diabetes. There is a connection, but the scientists are so wrapped up in finding a cure (or ongoing treatments; much more profitable) that they are ignoring, once again, folk wisdom.

Diabetes is caused by lack of insulin, which the body (is supposed to) produce(s) in the pancreas. That has been the scientific wisdom for just shy of a century.

What if that's wrong?
What if, instead of producing insulin, the pancreas -- still very much a mystery organ -- stores it? What if, like the ovaries, the human body comes with a measured amount of insulin or the base ingredients to turn (stuff) into insulin? What if our modern refined diet is just using up a lifetime supply in a few years?

The old folk used to tell kids not to eat so many sweets or they'd end up with sugar in their blood.
Science came along and said that's silly, that's not how it works. So everyone eats refined sugars and uses up all their insulin and -- voila -- sugar in their blood at a young age.

Insulin is playing a role in the diet/exercise dilemma as well. No one is sure exactly how that all factors together, but they've discovered things like insulin resistance and glucose intolerance and gluco-this and glycemic-that. If they look, they'll probably be able to relate that to ethnic origins -- genetics.

If they look.

But they won't, or very few will. They'll continue to preach "Diet and Exercise" until they've killed all the people they haven't operated on. And maybe even those. Much easier to follow the party line, blame the patient, than take time to know the patient and actually help them.

The old folks had it right all along.
As usual.
That family is  usually fat, and if you eat too much sugar while you're young, you'll end up with sugar in your blood.

Listen to your parents and grandparents, if it's only in your memory. They knew your body and background before doctors knew anything.