Today, the Two Mikes had a quick discussion with Dr. Salvatore Giorgianni
Dr. Giorgianni is a Practicing Clinical Pharmacist and the Senior Science Adviser to the Mens’ Health Network. he focused his presentation on the ongoing debate in the medical community about whether obesity — in men and women — is a medical problem or a lifestyle problem.
He said there are medicines that will help those with diabetes, lung disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, but all of those illnesses also require changes in the lifestyle of the patients who suffer from one or more of them.
On obesity, however, the above-noted argument continues at full throttle with the stop-eating bad things team going at it with the team that advocates developing a medicine that will help as people change their lifestyles.
This status quo is not working, and simply maintaining an obese lifestyle can lead to nothing but increasingly poor health, especially in men. For example, Dr. Giorgianni said that men tend to live sicker lives than women, and are dying on average six years sooner than women.
Until a helpful medicine comes along, he said, “what it comes down to is what and how much you eat, what you don’t eat, what you do to regularly exercise, and what you do to keep everything in moderation.” No medicine can turn the trick, however, without the individual’s lifestyle changes to accompany it.
MEN’S HEALTH Expert: Dr. Salvatore J. Giorgianni, Jr., PharmD. is Senior Science Adviser to the Men’s Health Network and a Past-Chair/Chair-Emeritus of the American Public Health Association and former Alumni Association Board Member of Columbia University School of Public Health.
