New Guidelines Published by AHA / ADC to Curb Obesity Pandemic

The American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) along with the Obesity Society have issued new guidelines to curb obesity for the first time in nearly 15 years. The guidelines were released on Nov.12, 2013 and aim at curbing the obesity pandemic in the U.S.

These guidelines will help physicians and doctors to give an effective battle plant to fight obesity in overweight people. The doctors can suggest customized weight loss plans based on the body mass index, or BMI, to the patients.

"Weight loss isn't about will power. It's about behaviors around food and physical activity, and getting the help you need to change those behaviors," Donna Ryan, M.D., Obesity Journal Associate Editor-In-Chief and co-chair of the writing committee and a Professor emeritus at Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said in a statement.

The guidelines suggest physical activity, working out more and following a diet with less calories. The new rules also advise the doctors to help patients fight obesity with the help of behavioral strategies, which would help them attain and sustain a healthy body mass.

 "Currently, comprehensive lifestyle programs that assist participants in adhering to a lower calorie diet and in increasing physical activity through the use of behavioral strategies are not widely available," Ryan said.

"We hope that by laying out the scientific evidence that medically supervised weight loss works and significantly reduces the risk factors for cardiovascular disease, it will be more fully embraced by patients and doctors and effective programs will eventually be reimbursed by all third-party payers," Ryan said further.

Around 155 million adults are estimated to be obese or overweight in the U.S. Obesity makes people susceptible to various diseases such as cardiovascular ailments, type 2 diabetes, respiratory problems and cancer among many others.

"Cardiovascular disease caused by atherosclerosis remains the number one cause of death, a major cause of disability and a huge source of health care costs," Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, MD, ScM, Senior Associate Dean, Chair and Professor of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and co-chair of the work group that developed the new guidelines, said in a news release.

 "We must do a better job of preventing it. That means being smarter in our approach to determine who should get medications, for example."

The AHA and ACC had recently released new guidelines for the drug statin prescribed for lowering bad cholesterol in people at high risk of cardio vascular diseases, according to a report.