This just out from the Institute for the Complete Lack of Common Sense; Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Western NY is shelling out $5,000,000 dollars to figure out the gold standard for treating those morbidly obese patients who would otherwise be candidates for gastric bypass surgery.
for the complete story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11736510/
Obviously, the insurance company wants to figure out a more cost effective approach to dealing with Obesity. Aphonso O'Neil-White, President of Blude Cross BlueSheild of Western New York said that gastric surgery cost the American health care system $4.5 billion last year --up 1,000 percent from a decade earlier.
Spending $5 Million to try to lower that is a wise move and a drop in the bucket. However, this is where things lack common sense:
"Many (patients) have been involved in repeated struggles to lose weight, perhaps jumping from one fad diet or new promising remedy," said Dr. Michael Noe, the study's lead investigator. "The real problem for many of them is not necessarily a lack of motivation but rather responding to misguided messages or bad advice."
Could he be trying to say that the failed dieter tried too much too soon on a typical "fad diet" rather than changing their lifestyle?!?!
Yet, KNOWING that such approached don't offer LASTING change, here is what the study is going to put these poor Obese 280 test subjects through:
Those taking part in the study will be divided into four groups. Two groups will consume 800 calories a day, with most calories coming from a packaged, nutritionally dense powder to be mixed into shakes, soups and other foods. (ahhhh, hello?!?, sounds to me like MEDi-fast, etc..! All things we obese have failed at numerous times--even Oprah did!)
800 calorie liquid diet, hmmmm!
The other groups will consume 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day.
Half of the participants will take an FDA-approved appetite suppressant or fat-blocker (I wonder if the drug maker is sharing in this unbiased study?) while the other half receives no medication. All will receive behavioral treatment to learn how to manage their diets, prevent relapses and stay motivated, and all will be encouraged to walk daily, eventually three miles.
Researchers expect that participants who consume 800 calories a day for 12 weeks and then increase to 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day, while taking medication, will lose 20 percent or more of their body weight, Noe said.
And Dr. Noe, I expect that at least 70% of your participants will not make it one week without breaking their 800 calorie diet to consume at least one of their "vice foods".
Will ANY of them be encouraged to change their lifestyle ONE step at a time? Will any of them be told how important water consumption is and to start there as their first solid habit? Will any of these 280 souls be encouraged to get rid of their worst diet vices, one at a time and slowly migrate towards a healthy lifestyle that will last forever?
Doesn't sound like it to me.
$5 million dollars to study what we already know?! Little wonder insurance premiums are so high. Blue Cross could give each of these 280 people LifeChanger, they would lose 20% of their body weight and they would be more likely to keep it off and by starving them with a liquid diet and expecting different results than in the past.
Insanity--doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.
Carpe Diet!
Julia
LifeChanger...everything else is just a diet!
NOT good to the last drop--or shard!
--"Cocoa Via to the rescue! Mars Inc., maker of Milky Way, Snickers and M&M’s candies, next month plans to launch nationwide a new line of products made with a dark chocolate the company claims has health benefits.he products are made with a kind of dark chocolate high in flavanols, an antioxidant found in cocoa beans that is thought to have a blood-thinning effect similar to aspirin and may even lower blood pressure. The snacks also are enriched with vitamins and injected with cholesterol-lowering plant sterols from soy.
