Obesity Level and Attrition: Support for Patient-Treatment Matching in Obesity Treatment

Obesity treatment studies report attrition rates front 20% to 45%. To reduce attrition, researchers have proposed matching patients to treatment based upon level of obesity. The current study attempted to validate the commonly held assumption that a mismatch between obesity level and treatment will promote attrition. The level of obesity and attrition rates of 39 adults who enrolled in a 12-session behavior therapy program were examined. As obesity level increased, so did attrition. Sixty-nine percent of subjects with mild obesity, 43% of subjects with moderate obesity and 0% of subjects with severe obesity completed treatment.     

Minimization of intermediate concentrations as a suggested optimality principle for biochemical networks

The multiobjective problem of minimizing all intermediate concentrations is solved for a model of glycolysis, the pentose monophosphate shunt and the glutathione system in human erythrocytes. It turns out that one solution out of four obtained corresponds qualitatively to the real system. Furthermore, it is shown that for any reaction system, the mentioned optimality principle implies distinct time hierarchy in that some reactions are infinitely fast and subsist in quasi-equilibrium. Finally, the relationships to the standard method of deriving enzymatic rate laws are discussed.