ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the research into treatments for obesity and discusses the future of obesity research. The research on obesity is divided into diet and lifestyle change, dietary herbal supplements, pharmaceuticals, and surgery and devices. In rodents and potentially in humans, high-fat diets and obesity lead to gliosis in the hypothalamus, a key area for neural control of food intake. Commercial weight loss programs have traditionally been advertisement driven and either unable or reluctant to share results with the scientific community. Exercise is known to be of help with weight maintenance, but adding exercise to a weight loss program gives at best only a marginal increase in weight loss. The importance of diet and lifestyle change in preventing diabetes and causing weight loss gives credence to recommendations that lifestyle and diet be the basis for all weight loss programs.
