Age threshold for obesity treatment

Dr Dror Dicker is the head of the Department of Internal Medicine at the Rabin Medical Center (Israel) and co-chair of the Obesity Management Task Force of the European Association for the Study of Obesity.

Can we define an age limit over which treatment of obesity is no longer beneficial?

Dror Dicker, MD: This is a very interesting and difficult to answer question. Sadly we do not do studies in patients who are in their 80s and 90s, so it is very difficult to answer.

If we see obesity as a disease by itself and if we understand that obesity has complications, when you reduce the complications at any age, you promote health. If we take people with obesity who are in their 80s and reduce their weight, we can help them move easily, be aware, be very careful not to fall, sleep better, not to say control their glucose better, control their blood pressure better, and by doing so maybe reduce the risk of comorbidities or complications.

I do not think there is an age limit, because at every age you can promote health.