The Birth of Bariatric Endocrinology and the Coming of Age of Obesity Medicine

Abstract

A search of PubMed shows that in 1960, the year I was born, there were 110 publications on obesity. In 1991, the year I graduated from Mayo Medical School, the number had risen to 406 publications. By contrast, in 2015 there were 5470 publications on obesity. The last quarter of a century has led to the recognition of a world-wide epidemic of overweight and obesity, with a rise in all their complications.1–3 And with this recognition came the need to understand the underlying physiology and pathophysiology, and the eventual development of therapeutic interventions.4–6