Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 3, 2026

Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Obesity in adults
1Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA.
Introduction:
About one third of the US population and one quarter of the UK population are obese, with increased risks of hypertension, dyslipidaemia, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis, and some cancers. Fewer than 10% of overweight or obese adults aged 40 to 49 years revert to a normal body weight after 4 years. Nearly 5 million US adults used prescription weight-loss medication between 1996 and 1998, but one quarter of all users were not overweight.
Methods And Outcomes:
We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of drug treatments in adults with obesity? What are the effects of bariatric surgery in adults with morbid obesity? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to September 2010 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically; please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Results:
We found 39 systematic reviews, RCTs, or observational studies that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions.
Conclusions:
In this systematic review, we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: bariatric surgery versus medical interventions, biliopancreatic diversion, diethylpropion, gastric bypass, gastric banding, mazindol, orlistat (alone and in combination with sibutramine), phentermine, sibutramine (alone and in combination with orlistat), sleeve gastrectomy, and vertical banded gastroplasty.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Obesity
Drug Dosing: Obese Patients
Pharmacokinetics in Obese Patients: Drug Absorption and Distribution
Pharmacokinetics in Obese Patients: Drug Metabolism and Excretion
Diabetes: Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Complications
Hypodermis

