[Low-calory dietetic treatment of gross obesity]

Reference is made to 96 grossly obese subjects classed as "resistant" to medical treatment and examined as possible candidates for surgery. 31 were eventually subjected to jejunal-ileal bypass. The main difference between these patients and those with slight or average spontaneous obesity was not so much their weight, but its self-maintenance. Weight patterns did not reflect calorie intake, though they pointed to a change in the energy balance when taken as a whole. In some cases that proved resistant both to severe hypocalorific treatment and the by-pass, no reason could be found for the discrepancy between calorie intake and the maintenance of weight. Some correlations between weight and certain endocrine, biohumoral and genetic features offer an idea of the metabolic orientation in gross obesity, but they fail to provide a satisfactory pathogenetic explanation.