Concerns Over Participant Suicides Prematurely Abort a Clinical Trial of Potentially Significant Impact on Public Health: How Will We Make Progress in Timid Times?

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Joseph F Cubells, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2011-04
• Publisher: Current Medicine Group
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
• Final Published Version (URL): http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11920-011-0179-1
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Current Psychiatry Reports
• ISSN: 1523-3812
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 2
• Start Page: 80
• End Page: 81
• Research Categories: Psychology, Behavioral

Abstract

Obesity, among the most common “preventable” causes of morbidity and premature mortality in developed societies, fundamentally arises from a mismatch between calories consumed (ie, feeding behavior, which in the rich world occurs in the setting of essentially unlimited availability of high-calorie foods) and calories expended (largely a function of how much or little a person uses weight-bearing musculature [ie, exercise behavior]). Thus, it is useful to view obesity and its adverse cardiovascular sequelae as behavioral disorders. The psychopharmacology of obesity is an important topic from the point of view of pharmacologic treatments aimed at influencing feeding behavior, as well as the myriad antipsychotic and antidepressant medications associated with changes in body weight.