An endocrinologist tried a new weight loss approach and it worked

"A Colorado endocrinologist helped spark a quiet revolution in weight care by changing how primary care clinics talk about - and treat - obesity. Instead of vague advice to "eat less and exercise more," a new system called PATHWEIGH gave patients a clear, judgment-free path to real medical support for weight management."

""There was a moment I put my face in my hands and thought, 'What am I doing?' I would write a lot of prescriptions for patients' diabetes, their blood pressure, their lipids and all these other conditions," says Perreault, a professor of endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine who practices in Westminster alongside primary care physicians. She realized that many of those medications addressed symptoms rather than the root problem. "None of these people want to be on these medications and I thought if I could just help them with their weight, many of these health concerns would probably go away," she says."

"Perreault and her colleagues created PATHWEIGH, a structured process that helps patients and primary care teams focus directly on weight management. The program introduces dedicated clinic visits where providers can concentrate specifically on weight related care instead of squeezing it into a standard appointment."

Leigh Perreault, MD, identified that routine primary care often handled obesity with vague advice like "eat better and exercise more" and relied on medications for downstream conditions instead of addressing weight. She and colleagues developed PATHWEIGH, a structured clinical process that adds dedicated weight-management visits and a judgment-free, medical approach to obesity care. The program enables primary care teams to focus directly on weight and to provide clear clinical support rather than brief counseling. NIH funding supported a rollout across UCHealth's 56 primary care clinics in Colorado and a pilot involving 274,182 patients to evaluate PATHWEIGH's impact.

Read at ScienceDaily