Despite massive government, medical, and individual efforts to win the war on obesity, 71 percent of Americans are overweight. The average adult is 24 pounds heavier today than in 1960. Our growing girth adds some $200 billion per year to our health care expenditure, amounting to a severe health crisis.
Drug research has not yielded a pill that helps people lose weight and keep it off. Traditional approaches such as diet and exercise can work in the short term, but people almost inevitably regain the weight. Randomized, controlled trials of weight loss surgery have shown some improvements in diabetes but not in mortality, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.
