Pharmacotherapy of Obesity

OBESITY is a chronic medical disorder and an epidemic world wide affecting roughly one third of the population of the United States and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Initial results from the 1999 National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) estimate that >50% of US adults are either overweight or obese; and adult obesity nearly doubled, increasing from 15% to 27%, during the 14-year reporting period of NHANES III. As a result increasing the economic cost of obesity (6.8% of total health costs) and leading to psychosocial consequences like limitation of physical activity.

Obesity is a state of excess adipose tissue mass and is currently defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/m² or greater, and a BMI between 25 and 29.9 kg/m² is termed overweight.

Obesity is also measured on the basis of Waist Hip ratio (WHR), a value of >0.9 in females and 1.0 in males is considered abnormal. WHR has a significant importance as it is the intra abdominal and abdominal fat has more significance and linked with complications associated with obesity like Hypertension, Diabetes mellitus.

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