Second Nature Care Blog

Losing Weight - Why Is It Difficult? Naturopathic Medicine has answers

[fa icon="calendar'] Jan 19, 2015 9:00:00 AM / by Dr. Isadora Guggenheim

Break through your weight loss barriers with Second Nature's permanent weight loss programs.

Obesity is a complex issue.  We assume that each obese person has a lack of willpower, is eating too much and they have an inability to modify their dysfunctional eating habits.  

Eating and eating behaviors are more complex than a patient's choice alone. Traditional assumptions about the cause of obesity are oppressive to practitioners and patients.  Someone put it so well, "The traditional mandate to "eat less and exercise more" is the nutritional equivalent of telling a depressed patient "just pull yourself together" or an asthmatic patient "just breathe easy."

Eating is controlled by complex signals from multiple organs that monitor food intake, gastrointestinal functions, energy transformation and storage.  These messages are sent to the brain.  The brain is the biggest player in your weight because it coordinates all of the messages and creates feedback signals based on the original input about eating, appetite, hunger and whether or not you feel full.  

Your genes, environment and evolutionary survival wiring control what you eat and your weight.  

When we have abundant food and calories we are more likely to have metabolic dysfunctions. 

Adults with obsessive compulsive eating disorders are being treated with lisdexamfetamine dimesylate AKA Vyvanse (manufactured by Shire) an ADHD drug. Vyvanse is a Class II drug and cannot be prescribed to those with drug or alcohol issues.

This may offer some benefits with an off-label use of this drug, but it still comes with disclaimers of side effects.Treatment-emergent adverse events was 84.7% for the combined treatment groups. 1.5% of participants had serious treatment-emergent adverse effects.  In a 4 week trial, the placebo group was lower in binge eating compared to the Vyvanse group at 50 mg/day.  A subgroup took 30 mg/day of Vyvanse and they did not have a statistically significant decrease in binge eating. 

At Second Nature, we offer safe and effective natural medications that address metabolic brain signaling. They don't reve your system up or down; they simply correct your signals from your organs to your brain. 

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The latest device approved by the FDA is an electrical stimulation device that targets the abdominal vagus nerve to control feeling full.  The Maestro Rechargable System is for 18 and older, those who have not been able to lose weight in a weight-loss program and those who have a body mass index of 35 to 45 with one other obesity-related condition like Type II diabetes.  It is implanted into the abdomen where it sends intermittent electrical pulses to the abdominal vagus nerve telling you whether your stomach is empty or full.  

Half of the patients who got the device lost 20% of their excess weight and about 38% lost 25% of their excess weight.  The FDA approved the device based on 18 months of data and said the benefits outweighed the risks.  Side effects included: nausea, pain at the neuroregulator site, vomiting, pain, heartburn, problems swallowing, belching, mild nausea, chest pain and surgical complications.

And this was considered a success.  We have oral homeopathic medications that work directly on your vagus nerve function without any side effects.  

There is a new kid on the weight-loss block joining Belviq, Qsymia, Saxenda and Contrave named Fex or Fexaramine.  I blogged about Saxenda and it's link to medullary thyroid cancer and dehydration.  

Fex was used on mice who were fed a high-fat, high-calorie diet.  Fex turns up the metabolic thermostat so the mice could burn more calories and utilize fats for fuel.  Some of the white fat cells transformed into fuel-burning brown fat. Fex mimics the FXR receptor, a protein, that gets stimulated by food coming into the stomach.  In response, bile acids get released, blood sugar levels stabilize and the body starts to burn some fat. The body clears out space to store the incoming imaginary meal with no calories or change in appetite. In mice Fex changed the intestinal microbiota. Don't get too excited because human trials have not been done yet.  We don't know about the potential side effects.  

We have several nutraceuticals that turn up your ability to burn fat NOW.  You don't have to wait for human trials.  

Lastly, I read an article about gastric bypass.  People have lost weight and felt great, but the darker side of gastric bypass is alcoholism.  A large 2012 study revealed that gastric bypass patients abusing alcohol increased from 7.6 % to 9.6% two years after surgery adding a whopping 2,000 alcoholics each year in the USA.  There is evidence to suggest that these dark effects persist even after a decade post-surgery.  

People started drinking their dessert and one glass after dinner turned into an addiction that was harder to battle than compulsive eating.  Some scientists thought it was a simple case of addiction transfer - replacing one addiction for another, but new evidence is emerging that links metabolic and hormonal changes triggered by gastric bypass that make patients only vulnerable to alcoholism and not other addictions.  

In the USA, 200,000 bariatric procedures are performed each year and 80% of those surgeries are gastric bypass. 90% of gastric patients keep off 50 percent of the excess weight and obesity-related illnesses are resolved like: Type II diabetes, heart disease and cancer which offers a 40% overall reduction in mortality.

So you can have the surgery, lose the weight, look good and become an alcoholic.

Addiction is a blunted response to dopamine release.  When you engage in high-reward activities - eating, sex, drugs or listening to music - you secrete dopamine to register pleasure.  Dopamine release motivates us to repeat the behavior.  Alcoholism is linked to a genetic deficiency in dopamine-binding receptors (D2) in the brain. Unlike gastric lap banding which is a surgically installed inflatable belt around the stomach to constrict it; gastric bypass alters the stomach's architecture.  Changes to the gut structure changes dopamine response.  Scientists found that bypass alters the signalling of D2 receptors. Insulin, leptin and grehlin, appetite-mediating gut hormones, may also be affected.  Leptin and grehlin hormones are known to modulate alcohol consumption.  

Gastric bypass patients, six months after surgery, reached higher blood alcohol levels more quickly than before surgery.  Fast and high with intense rushes for the user to want more is characteristic of addiction. Even rats given gastric bypass developed higher dependence on alcohol in a Penn State College of Medicine study.  

If you're considering gastric bypass make sure your surgeon educates you about alcohol addiction as a serious consequence of the surgery.  

A colonic is the best first step to kick starting your metabolism.  

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I'll talk more about Naturopathic Medicine weight loss protocols in the next blog so F ........

 

 

Topics: Weight Loss and Obesity

Isadora Guggenheim, ND, FNP, RN, MS, CNS, LMT, owner of Second Nature Naturopathic Care, LLC
For all appointments: Tel: 845 358-8385 Fax: 845 358-2963 drguggenheim@msn.com