Why I care about weight loss: A GP Perspective

For me, helping people to lose weight is the single most powerful thing I can do to improve individual and population health. We are experiencing a pandemic far worse than Covid-19.

But let me get this straight; this isn’t the individual fault. Being overweight isn’t a sign of laziness or of eating too much. It is not a sign of ‘weakness’. Obesity is a hormonal disease, as is Type 2 Diabetes. I feel passionately that people need to understand the processes at play within their body and feel supported to make changes that are life-long.

When I enrolled for a postgraduate diploma in Obesity and Weight Management in 2018 I was hoping to find the answer to why people couldn’t lose weight, and to find the missing ingredient that could unlock everything. I didn’t find it. I was shocked to find that although there are many ways to lose weight; there is no research to show how to keep it off long-term.

I did however get a true understanding of the complexity of the problem. There are so many factors at play. Where you live matters. How much money you earn matters. The level of education matters. Stress matters…a lot. The amount of sleep you have. Your genetics. Your epigenetics. How many hours you work. Which hours you work. Your relationships matter. Your happiness levels matters.  Of course the type of food matters. How often you eat and the timing of your meals are also critical. Your cultural beliefs matter. The list goes on and on.

Advising patients to eat less and move more is not good enough. It doesn’t work for a start.

But weight loss is the single most important thing we can do for our health. Prevention is better than cure. A lot better. Medication will not get us out of this. As a GP I see the cost of medication, with side-effects and ill-health every day. Medication does not cure lifestyle disease. And by lifestyle disease I mean Type 2 Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, Gout, PCOS, fatigue (for those with normal blood tests), joint pains. Even asthma will improve with lifestyle change.

Type 2 Diabetes in particular is a chronic, unrelenting disease getting worse year upon year upon year. I have developed a true passion for helping patients reverse their diabetes. It’s easier than I thought and it does not involve medications. We know that although they can decrease the blood sugar the chances of remission are so low that I’ve barely seen it happen. 

I felt a need to think differently & to act differently. The clinic we’ve developed is innovative yet simple: we use lifestyle medicine. We educate and empower patients using group consultations, carbohydrate restriction and intermittent fasting. We help improve sleep, understand chronic stress and take steps to decrease its impact. For those with Type 2 Diabetes we use blood glucose monitors to lower the sugar and to reverse their diabetes. And we see other diseases disappear: fatty liver, high blood pressure, gout & polycystic ovaries. All at the same time! We decrease the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

And this can happen within months!

In 2021 93% of our patients lowered their blood sugars with 56% having a normal HbA1c within 6 months! These are truly impressive results, results not usually seen without restrictive liquid diets or bariatric surgery. Over 80 repeat medications have been stopped with massive cost savings.

There is no capacity within the current NHS to practice preventative medicine. This clinic challenges the status quo. We need a paradigm shift. The only way to treat a lifestyle disease is with lifestyle modification. This is when we see true ‘wellness’. We need to do more.

Dr Nerys Frater

January 2023