Obesity

“We’re looking for innovative ways to both treat and prevent obesity — including creating healthier environments and designing programs for whole families.”

David Arterburn, MD, MPH
Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute Senior Investigator
Washington Permanente Medical Group, Internal Medicine

Research overview

“Obesity is the number-one health problem in the United States because it negatively affects our population’s health more than any other condition,” said Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute Senior Investigator David Arterburn, MD, MPH. Kaiser Permanente Washington researchers are doing practical research to learn how doctors, patients, families, employers, and policymakers can best work together to prevent and treat obesity.

“We’re focusing on three ways to halt the obesity epidemic,” said Senior Investigator Dori Rosenberg, PhD, MPH. “We’re helping to change obesity-promoting environments, bringing evidence-based prevention and treatment programs into health care systems, and helping people develop lifelong healthy diet and activity habits.”

Kaiser Permanente Washington obesity research areas include:

reducing sedentary behavior and promoting physical activity and healthy diet in various age groups, populations with chronic conditions, and families;
shared decision making to help patients find the best way to a healthy weight;
implementing health coaches in primary care to support behavior changes;
social networks that support lifestyle change programs;
relationships between medications and genetic factors in developing obesity;
health system, community, and national policies that address obesity;
relationships between obesity and depression, diabetes, and other conditions; and
long-term benefits and risks of bariatric (weight loss) surgery.

“Obesity is caused by many factors, so at Kaiser Permanente Washington, we’re working on many levels,” said Paula Lozano, MD, MPH, a senior investigator and Kaiser Permanente Washington’s assistant medical director for preventive care. “We’re improving health care to help people who are obese now. But since obesity is a societal problem, we’re also studying how to change our homes and workplaces and neighborhoods to create more healthy environments.”

Recent publications on Obesity

Klasnja P, Rosenberg D, Zhou J, Anau J, Gupta A, Arterburn DA. A quality-improvement optimization pilot of BariFit, a mobile health intervention to promote physical activity after bariatric surgery. Transl Behav Med. 2020 May 18. pii: ibaa040. doi: 10.1093/tbm/ibaa040. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Rubino F, Cohen RV, Mingrone G, le Roux CW, Mechanick JI, Arterburn DE, Vidal J, Alberti G, Amiel SA, Batterham RL, Bornstein S, Chamseddine G, Del Prato S, Dixon JB, Eckel RH, Hopkins D, McGowan BM, Pan A, Patel A, Pattou F, Schauer PR, Zimmet PZ, Cummings DE. Bariatric and metabolic surgery during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: DSS recommendations for management of surgical candidates and postoperative patients and prioritisation of access to surgery. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2020 Jul;8(7):640-648. doi: 10.1016/S2213-8587(20)30157-1. Epub 2020 May 7. PubMed

McTigue KM, Wellman R, Nauman E, Anau J, Coley RY, Odor A, Tice J, Coleman KJ, Courcoulas A, Pardee RE, Toh S, Janning CD, Williams N, Cook A, Sturtevant JL, Horgan C, Arterburn D. Comparing the 5-year diabetes outcomes of sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass: the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORNet) - Bariatric Study. JAMA Surg. 2020 May 1;155(5):e200087. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2020.0087. Epub 2020 May 20. PubMed

Coleman KJ, Fischer H, Arterburn DE, Barthold D, Barton LJ, Basu A, Courcoulas A, Crawford CL, Fedorka P, Kim B, Mun E, Murali S, Reynolds K, Suh K, Wei R, Yoon TK, Zane R. Effectiveness of gastric bypass versus gastric sleeve for cardiovascular disease: protocol and baseline results for a comparative effectiveness study. JMIR Res Protoc. 2020;9(4):e14936. doi: 10.2196/14936. PubMed

Arterburn DE, Johnson E, Coleman KJ, Herrinton LJ, Courcoulas AP, Fisher D, Li RA, Theis MK, Liu L, Fraser JR, Haneuse S. Weight outcomes of sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass compared to nonsurgical treatment. Ann Surg. 2020 Mar 13. doi: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000003826. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed