Some doctors have a simple way of treating obesity. For German Thomas Kraut, who complained of his growing belly 12 years ago, doctors in Norway, where he moved, initially prescribed him the weight loss drug Ozempic.

Kraut did lose weight with his face and arms becoming very thin, but his belly grew bigger. The next doctors put him on weight loss and nutrition programs, New York Post (NYP) reports.

Again they did not work. In 2019, a doctor tried to solve his obesity via a gastric sleeve operation. However, when the doctor was preparing him for surgery, he realized that the hard surface of the patient’s abdomen was not fat.

A CT scan was done and the result showed a huge tumor in his belly. Doctors diagnosed Kraut “with a rare fatty tumor that was actually made up of multiple smaller cancerous areas surrounded by fat,” according to NYP.

Kraut underwent a 10-hour operation to remove the 27-kilogram tumor on 26 September 2023.

He and his wife have filed a lawsuit against the doctors who failed to detect the huge and potentially deadly tumor, NYP said.

Meanwhile, Sunita Williams, 59, who is with the United States space agency NASA, has the opposite problem.

Recent photos released by NASA showed Williams “looking jarringly gaunt, with sunken cheeks and a noticeably thinner frame,” NYP reports.

Williams has been losing weight since June and NASA doctors recommended that she eat a high calorie diet.

To put on weight, Williams has to eat up to 5,000 calories a day, a NASA source said, citing agency doctors’ advice.

Williams’ condition was reportedly due to extended weightlessness in the International Space Station, where she and another astronaut got stranded after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that was supposed to take them back to Earth after eight days in orbit returned empty due to safety concerns.

The astronaut arrived at the ISS in June at 140 pounds and their rescheduled return is in February on another spacecraft. Meanwhile, she is packing on the pounds in space as advised by NASA doctors.