Obesity Unit
Clinical
Treating Obesity and Its Comorbidities
Disease Remission in Obesity Programs (D.R.O.P.)
Mediterranean Life
Whole food, plant-heavy, health-fat diet derived from large cardiovascular and diabetes trials
The Mediterranean diet consists of a variety of whole foods (including vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts, fish, olive oil, and wine). Mediterranean life also incorporates quality sleep, activity, stress management, and social relationships, all components of living a longer, healthier, happier life. This program can result in significant health improvement (both symptoms and blood test results) and medication reduction, often without calorie counting and restriction. We have designed this intervention modeled after PREDIMED (a large clinical trial in Spain showing cardiovascular benefits of the diet over low-fat diets) and another trial of a lower-carb Mediterranean diet showing greater diabetes remission compared to low-fat diet.
This is conducted as a 1-year program with at least once monthly group visits with a dietitian and behavioral psychologist.
Stepwise
Building a health lifestyle and weight loss/maintenance habits one step at a time for long-term success
Weight loss programs often start out intense with a long list of new and difficult things to do. Early success is frequently unsustainable. The Stepwise program instead focuses on building the foundation for long-term health, weight loss, and most importantly health and weight loss maintenance. While many seek a quick fix and thrive on early big results on the scale, Stepwise is for those who have experienced failure with this approach/attitude in the past, and for those that understand that what the scale says in 2 years is far more important than what it says in 2 months.
This is conducted as a 1-year program with at least once monthly group visits with a dietitian and behavioral psychologist.
OPTIFAST
Meal replacement low calorie diet for maximal non-surgical weight loss and disease remission, including a maintenance program
Certain medical conditions reach a severity where a healthy lifestyle and moderate weight loss over 6-12 months is not enough. Some patients need to lose a large amount of weight quickly to get off of medications for type 2 diabetes, or to safely get a needed orthopedic surgery or infertility treatment. Others have found that adequately following less-intense interventions has only resulted in small amounts of weight loss. For all of these, there is OPTIFAST, a medically supervised diet that begins with total meal replacement, followed by gradually building a new weight maintenance diet and habits. It has been shown to result in diabetes remission, reversal of PCOS and fatty liver disease, and can achieve an average weight loss result of 20% among those who complete the 6-month program.
This program requires a one-on-one medical evaluation by one of our endocrinology providers, 2 group visits/month for 6 months with a medical provider, dietitian, and behavioral psychologist, followed by a monthly maintenance program for 1 year. Medical follow-up visits are in a Shared Medical Appointment.
Division of Endocrinology
and Metabolism
W1055 Starzl BST
200 Lothrop Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15213