Holland Clinic

Although I am not a big fan of BMI or "Body Mass
Index", it does offer a very rough means of
determining whether a person is heavy enough to be
at significant risk for medical complications. Being at
such risk is a criterion I use to help determine
whether a person is a candidate for pharmacologic
(medication) therapy.

To put it another way, if I am going to treat someone
for the disease of obesity, the person has to actually
suffer from that disease.

This means, unfortunately, that people who are not
overweight enough (that is have a BMI lower than
30) generally are not candidates for weight control
medications. You can use the chart at the right of
this page to determine how much you need to weigh
to have a BMI of 30.

There ARE Exceptions

Weight loss CAN greatly improve health for people
with certain medical conditions even when those
people have a BMI lower than 30. In these cases, for
such people, pharmacologic therapy is still an option.
Among these "co-morbid" conditions are type 2
diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea and other
conditions. If you believe you may qualify for our
program on the basis of co-morbid illness, please feel
free to call us to discuss the matter further.

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