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Articles
featuring
Vivienne Matalon M.D.
Of TLC Healthcare
PULSE (Weekly Report on Science and Medicine)
"Losing weight the safe way" / October 5, 1997
Losing weight the safe way
Whether
you need to drop 10 pounds or 400, the principles of losing weight
are the same - watching your diet and exercise.
Sounds simple enough, but anyone who's ever tried to shed some pounds
- and keep the weight off - can attest differ-ently.
In their quest to he thinner. 6 million people took the drugs Redux
and fentluramine - the "fen" part of the fen-phen diet. Complaints
about medical com-plications prompted the drugs recent withdrawal
from the mar-ket.
People are so desperate for a solution that they'll listen to anyone.
They're willing to put anything in their mouth - even at the risk
of harming their body. Safety still has to he para-mount," said Vivienne
Matalon M.D., of Marlton.
"We really have a population looking for a simple solution to a complex
problem," she added.
When it comes to losing weight and keeping it off, there is no magic
pill" or easy an-swer, adds Matalon, an internal medicine specialist.
Rather than calling it a diet, it's a total lifestyle change. That's
the only way to lose and maintain weight. And this should he done
under the super vision of a physician to determine if the person suffers
from underlying physical conditions such as diabetes or an overactive
thyroid."
John L. Krause Jr. decided to change his eating and exercise habits
when he learned he had adult-onset diabetes three years ago. At that
time, he tipped the scales at more than 200 pounds.
"I went on a very vigorous program of diet and exercise. I lost 25
to 28 pounds," said Krause, a plastic surgeon who is chief of surgery
at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, Camden.
His health improved so much he was able to control his diabe-tes without
medication.
But," Krause said, "I got married and fell off the diet wagon."
He recently asked Matalon for help. She encouraged him to exercise
more and put him on a diet that emphasizes proteins, fluids and fresh
produce and is light on alcohol and red meat.
"I don't dislike anything about the diet," he said. 'It's heavy into
fresh fruits and vegetables. You can have chicken, turkey and fresh
fish and red meat once a month."
Although he's lost 12 pounds in four weeks and dropped one suit size,
the regimen hasn't been easy.
Any kind of diet is hard." But, he adds, he doesn't miss the foods
he used to eat.
Krause has noticed other benefits in addition to the weight loss.
He said he has more energy and his cholesterol and blood pressure
have improved.
Roland Stippick aslo has noticed improvements since he started losing
weight in April.
Stippick is obese, a complex medical condition defined by the National
Institutes of Health as a body weight 20 percent or more over standard
"desirable" weight.
Since March, the 31 year-old Haddon Township resident has lost nearly
250 pounds. Stippick, who weighed approximately 700 pounds before
starting his diet, said he feels good.
"He's come a long way. He's had problems with his weight all his life,"
explained Dr. Matalon, reaching across to Stippick's custom wheelchair
to reassuringly rub his hands. Stippick's body can't support his weight,
so he's unable to walk.
"Basically, everyone in the family has a problem with obesity due
to a metabolic problem, not an inordinate amount of eating," Dr. Matalon
explained.
Stippick has battles his weight most of his life, both on the physical
and mental levels. Unable to tolerate the taunts of his classmates,
he was 16 when he left high school, where he was enrolled in special
education classes, his mother, Diane, said.
Stippick, who weighed 200 pounds then, said school "wasn't for me."
Later he added, "I couldn't walk too good."
While he still has hundreds of pounds to shed, the goal for the next
year is to get Stippick out of the wheelchair permanently and walking
again. That's a prospect Stippick--homebound for the last five years--calls
"exciting".
He enjoys going to the movies and shopping. He already stated buying
Christmas presents. And he expecially enjoyed a recent trip to the
casinos. "I won $60!"
Still, he said he feels lonely, a sentiment Dr. Matalon often hears
from her obese patients.
"The deprivation of being with people, and people you want to be with,
is a very big problem," said Matalon. |
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