The Feinberg School of Medicine launched a new Comprehensive Center on Obesity last week to confront “the epidemic of our time,” said Dr. Lewis Landsberg, the center’s founder and director.
Obesity is so pervasive that, for the first time, life expectancy may decrease for the next generation, said Landsberg. Obesity is likely to displace smoking as the most prevalent public health issue, he said. More than one-third of American adults are classified as obese, which is defined by a Body Mass Index of more than 30.
“Prevention is ultimately the way that this epidemic can be contained and reversed,” said Landsberg, the former dean of Feinberg.
The center will pursue a “three-pillar” strategy to combat obesity: educational outreach, clinical care and research. The center will focus specifically on issues of obesity in children and pregnant women, as well as exploring why African-Americans and Hispanics tend to have higher rates of obesity.
The obesity center’s clinical care intends to begin drug trials and basic research within the next year, said Dr. Robert Kushner, the clinical director.
Kushner heads the Center for Lifestyle Medicine, which was launched a year ago to begin patient treatment before the obesity center’s official establishment. The clinical center’s work will be incorporated into the obesity center’s research, ideally making use of the clinic’s patients for trial drugs and programs, Kushner said.
“The whole idea of the NCCO is to be a center of excellence regarding obesity, and to do that you really need activity at all three of these pillars,” Kushner said.
Some of the research will be geared toward understanding the metabolic differences between the lean and the obese, in order to help to eradicate the stigma that comes with being obese.
“The problem is, obesity is not regarded as a disease but as a character flaw that is secondary to gluttony or sloth,” Landsberg said. “In fact, we know that individuals differ a lot in their metabolic differences, and what maintains weight in one individual will cause another to gain weight.”
These differences are apparent in the patients of the Center for Lifestyle Medicine. There is a huge variation in the ability of patients to lose weight, Kushner said, and it is difficult to predict a patient’s success.
“For some, they just need a wake-up call and they’re able to do it themselves,” Kushner said. “For others, because of their family genetics or life circumstances or illnesses they have, it’s just very difficult to lose weight or get a handle on your weight, and that’s where a center like ours comes in.”
The national rate of obesity is still increasing, though it appears to be leveling off, Landsberg said. Still, it will take significant time and work for the new center to make a dent in the massive increase in the nation’s waistline over the past 15 years, he said.
“It will be a while as we roll out all the various parts of it, but it’s a long-term effort,” he said.
