A doctor who shed an impressive 25 kilograms in just 42 days has gone viral on Chinese social media platforms after he ended up winning multiple awards at a fitness contest, according to a report in South China Morning Post. 31-year-old Wu Tiangen, working as a surgeon at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in central Hubei province, decided to embark upon the fitness journey after gaining weight due to the sedentary lifestyle often associated with hospital work.

Wu was diagnosed with a light fatty liver in 2023 with his weight reaching 97.5 kg last year. In his day job, Wu dealt with obese patients and helped them lose weight through surgery. However, after seeing his condition, Wu decided to shake things up.

“If I cannot save myself, how can I save others?” said Wu.

Wu hired Shi Fan, a top athlete who won the Overall Fit Model championship at the IFBB World Fit Model Championships in Lithuania last year, as his coach and started the weight loss journey.

The student-coach duo chalked up a plan to shed fat and increase muscle over a short period. The only non-negotiables in the process were two hours of exercise every day and consistent six hours of sleep.

Also Read | Man Loses 82 Kg After Struggling To Fit On Plane: “I Would Have Died Before 30”

The competition

His dedication was such that he managed to reduce his weight in roughly six weeks. As the competition approached, Wu intensified his training by spending close to four hours a day in the gym.

“Wu’s training intensity exceeds that of many professional athletes,” said Shi.

Weighing 73.5 kg and 182 cm tall, Wu took part in the Tianrui Cup Fitness and Bodybuilding Match in January. Being the only doctor in the fray, the challenge was intimidating but Wu managed to win the champion titles in the newcomer and fit models categories as well as the most popular participant.

Quizzed about his advice to those wanting to become healthy like him, Wu said: “You should make a long-term plan to lose weight and insist on it. I do not advocate drastic, short-term methods which require eating very little,” said Wu.

As per the report, Wu has already helped about 100 people successfully reduce their weight in recent years.

Recent studies have uncovered a frightening association between the popular diabetes and weight loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy, with a rare eye disorder that may cause blindness.

A study, published in the medical journal JAMA Ophthalmology, reported that individuals on those drugs containing semaglutide have a much larger percentage chance of acquiring NAION, or, more precisely known by its acronym, non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy.

This is defined by a lack of flow through the optic nerve, suddenly damaging one’s vision since that nerve has more than one million strands. NAION is a rare condition, affecting only 2 to 10 people per 100,000. It is the second leading cause of optic nerve blindness, and there is currently no effective cure.

The study revealed that those using semaglutide for diabetes were four times more likely to develop NAION than those not using the drug. Those using it for weight loss had even greater risk-more than seven times higher.

“To be perfectly clear, I would not take my findings and use them to recommend that patients stop taking their medications,” says Dr Rizzo. “Our finding was really the first possible significant negative finding with these drugs. It may just merit extra caution in the consideration between doctors and patients about who may use this medicine.”

According to the study, semaglutide is linked to a seven-fold increased risk of NAION when taken to treat obesity and a four-fold increased risk when used to treat type 2 diabetes.

Among the 710 patients with Type 2 diabetes, semaglutide users had an 8.9% chance of developing NAION, while those on other medicines had a 1.8% chance.

The rate of NAION development was 6.7% for patients administered semaglutide for weight loss and 0.8% for patients on other medicines.

New Delhi:

Khalid bin Mohsen Shaari, once known as the heaviest man alive, has shed 542 kg, thanks to Saudi Arabia’s former King Abdullah. In 2013, Khalid weighed a life-threatening 610 kg and was bedridden for over three years. His condition deteriorated to the point that he depended on friends and family for even his most basic needs. Moved by Khalid’s plight, King Abdullah stepped in with a comprehensive plan to save his life.

The King arranged for Khalid to receive top-tier medical care at no cost. Khalid was transported from his home in Jazan to King Fahad Medical City in Riyadh using a forklift and a specially designed bed. A team of 30 medical professionals was assembled to develop a rigorous treatment and diet regimen.

Khalid’s treatment included gastric bypass surgery, a customised diet and exercise plan, and intensive physiotherapy sessions aimed at helping him regain his mobility. Supported by leading Middle Eastern scientists, Khalid saw incredible results. 

Once the heaviest person alive and the second heaviest person to have ever lived, Khalid bin Mohsen Shaari underwent a remarkable transformation, losing nearly half his body weight in just six months. 

By 2023, Khalid had lost an astounding 542 kg, bringing his weight down to a healthy 63.5 kg. His physical transformation was so dramatic that he required multiple excess skin removal surgeries – a common phenomenon for individuals who undergo significant weight loss, as the skin may not be able to adapt to the new body shape.

Today, he is fondly known as “The Smiling Man,” a nickname given by the medical staff who witnessed his remarkable transformation.

BMI has remained the go-to method for measuring health since it first started being used in the latter part of the 20th century.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Body mass index (better known as BMI) has long been used to get a quick and easy snapshot of a person’s body fat levels. To calculate someone’s BMI, you divide their weight in kilograms by their height in metres times itself. The resulting number is used to determine a person’s health risk.

Although there are far better ways of getting an accurate measure of a person’s body fat levels – such as using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (Dexa) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) – these are very resource-intensive. This may explain why BMI has remained the go-to method for measuring health since it first started being used in the latter part of the 20th century.

But many health experts believe BMI has significant limitations, particularly for children and young people (whose body fat levels change as they grow), athletic people (who have high levels of muscle mass) and people from ethnic minority groups (who may develop health problems at lower body fat levels).

BMI was never created for use in health and was developed using data from European people in the 19th century. Although child and ethnicity‐specific adjusted BMI and alternative height and weight ratios have been suggested, none have made sufficient headway to improve BMI’s reputation.

Several alternatives to BMI have also been suggested – such as using waist-to-hip ratio (waist circumference divided by hip circumference) or body volume index (which uses 3D body scanners to estimate total body fat distribution).

But a recent study suggests that instead of BMI, we should be using something called body roundness index (BRI) to get a more accurate picture of a person’s body fat levels and predict health risk.

What is body roundness index?

BRI was developed by U.S. researchers in 2013 in response to criticisms of BMI. Instead of looking at height and weight, BRI mathematically quantifies body fat levels by looking at height and waist circumference instead. This provides a value typically ranging from one to 20. It is the lowest and highest values that suggest the highest health risk.

Numerous studies have shown that BRI may be better than BMI at predicting the health risks associated with different levels of body fat. This includes predicting risk of weight-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease and cancer, as well as death from any cause.

This latest study, which looked at 32,995 U.S. adults between 1999 and 2018, found an association between BRI and death from any cause. Specifically, they also found that people with the lowest and highest BRI scores had the greatest health risks.

They also found that BRI was better than BMI at accurately detecting this risk. This is because BRI considers the fat held around the abdomen, which is linked to greater risk of health problems. This is different to BMI, which only considers overall weight.

BRI v. BMI

Given BRI only requires a tape measure and a maths equation, this means it’s as easy to use and accessible as BMI. But assuming BRI is manually measured, it remains as subject to human error as BMI.

One study even found that eight out of ten trained health professionals demonstrated such high levels of human error when manually measuring the abdomen that they failed to notice an increase of 3cm the second time they took the measurement. This margin of error will probably be even higher in people taking their own measurements at home.

As a new metric, BRI also does not yet have the kind of extensive data backing up its use that exists for BMI. This makes it harder to know just how effective and reliable it is compared to these more established methods.

And like BMI, BRI is a composite measure – meaning it combines multiple highly related measures into a single index. This makes it very hard to unpick the impact that different body fat levels can have on health – and can lead to misleading interpretations of the results.

While BRI may improve on some of BMI’s shortcomings, it’s not immune to misclassification. For example, people with high muscle mass might still face inaccuracies in their health risk assessments if their body fat distribution does not conform to “typical” patterns around the abdomen. Research also suggests that BRI’s accuracy at predicting the health risks may vary depending on a person’s ethnicity, age and sex.

BRI most certainly represents an advancement in the hunt for a more accurate alternative to BMI by focusing more on body shape and fat distribution rather than just body size. But it still has its limitations. Although this latest study gives us more data on BRI’s accuracy, more research is still needed before we can be certain it’s better than BMI and should replace it.

Perhaps an even better way of getting a picture of a person’s health is to use 3D body surface imaging. This creates a scale digital 3D image of the human body which allows health professionals to explore all potential existing body measures, including both BRI and BMI, as well as allowing us to explore new digital alternatives.

But regardless of which body measure you or a doctor may use to asses your health, it’s important to remember that every person is unique, and our bodies do – and should – always come in a wide range of shapes and sizes.

Alice Bullas is Senior Research Fellow, Sports Engineering Research Group, Sheffield Hallam University. This article is republished from The Conversation.