Therapeutic process for the treatment of obesity and associated metabolic disorders

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a method of treating a patient suffering from the metabolic syndrome and / or related disorders including Type 2 diabetes, comprising the steps of (a) providing to the patient a dietary regimen that decreases overactive sympathetic tone; followed by (b) providing to the patient a dietary regimen that increases dopaminergic tone while maintaining the above decreased overactive sympathetic tone. The present invention is also directed to prepackaged meals and recipes useful in implementing the dietary regimens.

Description

[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 402,231 filed Aug. 9, 2002.[0002] 1. Field of the Invention[0003] The present invention is directed to therapeutic processes for the treatment of obesity and associated metabolic disorders such as the metabolic syndrome, and more particularly to a planned dietary regimen that can treat obesity, metabolic syndrome, and Type 2 diabetes.[0004] 2. Brief Description of the Art[0005] The incidence of overweight and obese occurrences in the U.S. and worldwide human population is reaching epidemic proportions. Obesity (commonly defined as a Body Mass Index of >30 kg / m.sup.2) is often associated with a variety of pathologic conditions such as hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia, and each of these conditions contributes to the risk of cardiovascular disease. Collectively, these pathologies that tend to associate (obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and hyperte...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Frequently, a regimen of medications to treat these pathologies is impractical, unsafe, and only modestly effective in the long term.

No singular long-term effective pharmaceutical treatment for the metabolic syndrome currently exists.

Secondly, the source of energy in many diets is high carbohydrate / low fat in content, that can exacerbate specific aspects of the syndrome.

Thirdly, empirical evidence indicates that calorie restricting dietary plans are difficult to adhere to long-term and most individuals regain weight lost on such diets within 5 years.

Therefore, it is not possible to ascribe increased body fat store level in these animals strictly to increased energy input or decreased energy expenditure levels.

Although pharmacologic agents acting as neuromodulators may be applied locally to appropriate neurons in the brain to induce or reverse the metabolic syndrome by mimicking the natural neuronal activities driving each condition, it is not a practical approach to the treatment of the disorder.

Ingestion of L-DOPA containing foods without the prior exposure to the Stage 1 diet of this plan will not provide benefit of improving the metabolic syndrome inasmuch as the L-DOPA will be converted to norepinephrine centrally, which could function to maintain the syndrome.