Obesity

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, indicated that approximately 40 per cent of today's high school students and young adults had experienced obesity or could be categorised as overweight before leaving primary school. "These worrying data indicate that the childhood obesity epidemic in the US continues to grow and get more serious. Our knowledge about effective interventions to fight this also seems limited," said researcher K.M. Venkat Narayan

Hernia recurrence is more likely in obese patients. In fact, obese people are not only at a higher risk of hernia formation but failure of hernia surgery among such patients is high. To lessen this risk, overweight or obese patients are often asked to lose weight before undergoing a hernia surgery. However, that's a difficult proposition and is easier said than done.

They were deliberating upon how to combat obesity - through prevention and medications and therapies commonly used to treat allergies in a multi-disciplinary online seminar on 'Obesity and its Prevention, Allergic Diseases' organised by the Faculty of Medicine, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).