According to the U.N.,
Kuwait has the highest proportion of obese adults in the Middle East,
with 42.8% of its population considered severely overweight. Saudi
Arabia follows at 35.2%.
The growth of obesity in
the region is also an economic concern. According to a report by Frost
& Sullivan, healthcare spending across the Gulf will triple to
$133.2 billion by 2018, mainly as a result of lifestyle diseases like obesity and diabetes.
This is making investor think about investing in obesity and diabetes interventions.
Obesity is going to be the world's biggest health care market.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has intervened to help a man who has become one of the heaviest people in the world.
The king ordered Khalid
bin Mohsen Shaari, who weighs 1,345 pounds (610kg) and is unable to move
by himself, be transferred from the Southern border province of Jazan
to the country's capital Riyadh to undergo treatment.
According to Guinness
World Records, the record weight for a living person is held by Manuel
Uribe from Mexico, who weighed 1,235 pounds (560kg) in 2006. After
making a television appeal for help, his weight in March 2012 had fallen
to 980 pounds (444.6 kg.)
According to the official
spokesman for Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health, Shaari was due to
arrive in Riyadh either later Monday or on Tuesday. Pictures showed a
fork-lift truck lifting him in is bed. The spokesman said Shaari is aged
between 18 and 20.
He will be treated at the
King Fahd Medical City, and undergo a series of dietary and physical
programs in order to help him lose weight, the spokesman said. Although
surgery is not scheduled at the moment, the Ministry of Health says it
has not been ruled out. Special beds and trolleys have been made for
him.
Onciomed, Inc in
California has developed a ground breaking technology that imitates
gastric surgery without cutting portions of the stomach.
Currently, raising capital from private and institutional investors: info@onciomed.com
After AMA (American
Medical Association ) declared obesity as a disease. The market for
obesity is estimated to touch $139.5 B by 2017. This is making the
medical device makers and investors very excited. There are very few
treatment options for obesity, since it was never classified as a
disease and only a medical condition.
