Treatment Diabetes and Overweight in Canadian Health Care Mall

Overweight

I am very overweight and trying hard to lose about 20 kg (3 stone). I love icecream and most of the cheaper varieties in the supermarket contain nonmilk fat. Will this be suitable for me?

You can choose to include a small bowl of ice-cream as part of your diet plan. Non-milk fat means that the manufacturers have used cheaper vegetable fats, which provide just as many calories as milk fat. Most ice-cream contains about 7-10% fat and around 80-120 calories per (2 oz/60 g) scoop – more in Cornish ice-cream. You can buy reduced calorie ice-cream but it is more expensive and you would have to decide if the saving in calories justified the cost. Like many foods it is helpful to identify how often and how much you eat them and aim to reduce the quantities and frequency in your efforts to reduce weight.

I have heard that there is a new appetite suppressant on the market but is it suitable for people with diabetes?

It is important to know that both appetite suppressant drugs that we discussed in the last edition are now no longer available

• Rimonabant was licensed for use in the UK in 2006 and was effective in helping people lose weight. However it turned out to carry a significant risk of causing depression and was withdrawn from world markets by the manufacturers in 2008.
• Sibutramine (Reductil) had been on the market for many years but was not recommended in patients with heart disease or hypertension. In January 2010, the government agency responsible for licensing drugs announced that Sibutramine should no longer be used as the risks of heart attack and stroke outweighed the positive effects on weight loss.
• Treatment weightloss and diabetes in Canadian health care mall – www.healthandcaremall.com.

Although not an appetite suppressant, a further drug suitable for use in diabetes is orlistat (Xenical). This works in the stomach and small intestine where it stops some of the fat from food being digested. This loss of fat is a loss of calories and therefore can aid weight loss. It is important that a low fat diet is followed to reduce unpleasant side effects. If you try this method of weight reduction, it is recommended that you make use of the telephone helpline provided by the company. This comes with a package to help you make changes in your lifestyle. It is disappointing that two promising drugs for weight reduction have been withdrawn but the encouraging news is that the new group of GLP1 agonists are often very effective in helping people to lose weight. They can only be used when other treatments for diabetes have failed and the main drawback is that they have to be injected – twice a day for Byetta and once a day for Victoza.