Liven Healthcare is bringing about WHEAT Revolution in the country
Q. Could you recommend guidelines for treating overweight and obesity?
WHO and other health organizations of the world have recommended 5 step approach to treat the problem of overweight and Obesity.
Step 1 and 2 is the first line of treatment for overweight, obese or even super obese person. They have to follow it for a longer period of time.
Behavioral Modification of the patient is the key as lifestyle change has to be long term. Change in habits is of utmost importance. The stress of thinking about food and the desire to have it often is causing more problem than the food itself. People’s perception towards food and life has to be changed. Adding physical activity as a daily routine and making it a habit should be the priority of treating consultant.
Pharmacotherapy; although very few options available now, can be helpful only if accompanied with dietary modification and Physical Activity .
Bariatric surgery is for super obese or morbid obese people where steps 1 – 4 were tried sincerely many times and had seen no significant results. The Bariatric surgery is the last option for patients when the condition is very critical and it’s a matter of life and death. People opting surgery before trying first 4 steps is really a matter of concern. These kind of people will have a short term weight loss but will regain their weight even after surgery.
Q. Please share some details about obesity treatments?
Primary reason why people gain weight is that they eat excess calories or energy for a longer period of time. So to lose weight they have to reduce the calorie intact for a longer period of time depending upon how much excess weight they are carrying. Avoiding fried foods, sweets, dry fruits and nuts, high calorie milk products will be the first step. Second step would be eating balanced healthy meals having cereals, pulses, vegetables, salads, fruits, egg whites, chicken, low calorie skimmed milk products . Quantity of food to eat would be decided by looking at age, height, physical activity etc. Third step is activity. Walking is the only activity required during the weight loss process to accelerate the weight loss while on low calorie diet. Avoiding all kinds of exercises during weight loss will help in long term maintenance. After reaching normal or near normal weight, person can start exercising gradually but should see that it is part of life and not temporary.
Q. What kind food intakes you would advise today’s generation, especially teenagers.
Teenagers should follow 80-20 principle. In a month at least 80% of the times they should eat homemade food. Eating out, snacks or full meal, should be only 20% of the time in a month. Depending upon your weight and family history of gaining weight and diseases, teenagers should opt for mix and match approach. Just avoiding fried stuff, sweets and deserts, soft drinks will help a lot. Carry homemade food as meal and snacks (prepared from low oil and sugar) for munching in between the meals.
Q. How is obesity linked to other diseases like diabetes, hypertension & heart diseases?
Obesity is an independent risk for the development of heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. Obesity has been strongly associated with this due to three major risk factors which are interlinked. Type 2 diabetes, hypercholesterolemia (or rather atherogenic dyslipidemia) and hypertension. Genetic predisposition, inherent ethnicity, obesity, rapid urbanization, high intake of fast foods, smoking and lack of exercise contribute to this rise.
Central obesity (Waist circumference more than 80cm for Indian females and 90 cms for males) is associated strongly with these lifestyle diseases. Diabetes is the single, most powerful risk factor for heart disease (CAD - Coronary Artery Disease). With diabetes there is chance of five-fold increase in Cardiovascular disease than without diabetes. The higher risk among diabetic person may be partially explained by the “clustering” of multiple factors in diabetic individuals, such as hypertension, smoking and obesity. Only 15- 20% weight reduction helps in preventing and controlling all these diseases.
Liven Healthcare Pvt Ltd is a healthcare company founded by Dr Kiran Rukadikar and his wife Dr Sangeeta Rukadikar in August 2013. The idea behind converting the individual practice to company is to go beyond individual capacity. The spread and awareness of our knowledge and services becomes easy on a company level. After the formation of company from one clinic practice we have reached to 6 clinic practice and growing. We have Liven Obesity Training Centre in our Head Office at Kolhapur where we train doctors and dietitians so they can practice on their own or work under our organization. On technology front we currently have web based online consultation programs. Our mobile app for general public and our esteemed patients will be available soon.
Q. Kindly brief us about the Liven Healthcare concept
Liven weight loss programs is the most scientific, authentic and traditional way of managing the weights. WHEAT REVOLUTION – WHEAT is an acronym for – W stands for walking H stands for Healthy and EAT stands for eating = walking and healthy eating. Wheat revolution is the art and science of weight loss where people achieve permanent weight loss.
Q. What is the USP of Liven Healthcare Pvt. Ltd?
1. Dietitian – is not trained in Physiology, Obesity, diabetes and other diseases. Doctors - are not trained in Nutrition. So no one has perfect answer for nutrition in Diabetes, Heart disease , Obesity and lifestyle diseases, Liven has it - for people that’s an added advantage that’s our USP.
2. For weight loss we ask patients to follow Liven Diet and just walk – and we firmly believe and have proven records that it has worked for more than 15000 patients since last 15 yrs .All other places for weight loss people focus on exercises, herbal medicines, different types of machine therapies under the name of lipolysis, liposuction and bariatric surgeries and many more things which are not required or recommended, too expensive & also not scientific, hence can be dangerous. It may have short term benefits but no long term effects. All other methods have some or the other risks which we don’t have. LIVEN is a Permanent weight loss solution; Guaranteed; with just lifestyle change.
Q. Please tell us about your expansion plans?
We are taking an omni-channel approach. One is our physical Clinics and other is Online clinics, web based (which is operational since last 6 years) and Mobile app (under development). Physical clinics will be of 3 kinds – company owned, franchisee owned and dietitian operated clinics. At present, we have given a Zonal franchisee to a businessman from North India, Panchkula, Chandigarh. He will be covering 7 states in North India. We are inviting Zonal and Master franchisee for western states and southern states of India. We are also open to franchisees globally.
