Finding your Ideal Weight

Today I was looking for something to do with aminoglycoside antibiotics, but got sidetracked on my web searches and I came across this site which describes ideal body weight.  Unfortunately the author doesn't quite explain the whole story.

The problem is that one word is being used to mean two different ideas.  Ideal Body Weight is a concept that we use in pharmacokinetics (the science of how a drug passes through your body) to describe what your weight from the perspective of a water soluble drug, as those drugs are unaffected by the amount of fat you have on board.  There's two common formulas for that - Broca's index and the Devine Formula.

However this website, written by a doctor for patients, tells people not to use those formulas because they're not useful for telling them their "ideal" body weight, that is the weight they should aim for in their long-to-be-continued new years diet.  The ideal body weight calculations I've mentionned refer to what you would weigh with barely any fat on board, which for many of us is unattainable if not dangerous.

For target weights and assessing whether you're obese,  you can't use the above formulas.  The BMI equation (weight divided by height and then divided by height again - in kilograms and metres) is what you need to use if you or someone you know is wanting to reduce their weight to the ideal.  You can make a target weight by taking the ideal range (19-25) and multiplying that by your height twice - again metres and kilograms.  

So keep your ideal body weights for pharmacokinetics and best of luck with your BMIs for this new year. 

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