It's well known that your body works against you when you try to lose weight," Dr. David E. Cummings of the University of Washington reported to Time magazine. "What's new is the possibility that a rise in ghrelin is the way it's done." Unfortunately, the researchers didn't follow the subjects after the study ended, but they "expect" that most of them regained the lost weight. But one participant did tell the Wall Street Journal that he regained everything he lost plus 15 more pounds. That's the usual story with all diets. The corpulent seem doomed to corpulence. At least they did until the advent of gastric bypass surgery.

Researchers also measured ghrelin levels in five subjects who had stomach bypass surgery. "Despite a 36 percent weight loss…the ghrelin profile in the gastric-bypass group was 77 percent lower than in normal-weight controls," the researchers reported. In other words, people who lost weight following stomach bypass surgery had very low ghrelin levels compared to obese subjects who had lost the same amount of weight and compared to people of normal weight. What's more, ghrelin levels in people who had the surgery didn't even rise before meals as it does in most people.

This may explain why people who undergo gastric bypass surgery are remarkably successful in losing weight-and keeping it off.

Some patients have lost as much as 300 pounds and kept the weight off for a decade or more, according to the Washington Post. "It's nowhere near like dieting and exercise, where almost universal weight regain is seen," Dr. Cummings told the Post. "We propose that the loss of ghrelin…may be the explainer," Cummings added.

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William Campbell Douglass I.I., M.D. has been called "the conscience of modern medicine," and the National Health Federation voted him "Doctor of the Year."

Learn more about him, and sign up for his "Daily Dose" at www.douglassreport.com.

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