Dr. Payam Kerendian, DO

Health Optimization & Obesity Medicine Physician in Los Angeles

Founder & Medical Director, Delight Medical & Wellness Center

Meet Dr. Payam Kerendian

For more than 20 years, Dr. Payam Kerendian has helped patients improve their weight, metabolism, hormones, energy, body composition, sexual health, mobility and overall well-being.

But his approach to medicine didn’t begin with the term Health Optimization.

It evolved into it.

After years of practicing across family medicine, obesity medicine, hormone health, musculoskeletal medicine and other areas of patient care, Dr. Kerendian repeatedly noticed something:

The problems patients experience rarely exist in isolation.

A patient may come in because they’re gaining weight.

Another because they’re exhausted.

A man may notice declining libido, increasing abdominal fat or loss of muscle.

A woman may suddenly find that menopause has changed her sleep, weight, energy and body composition.

Another patient may have knee pain that has gradually made exercise—and staying healthy—more difficult.

These can appear to be separate problems.

But metabolism, hormones, body composition, sleep, cardiovascular health, sexual health, mobility, lifestyle and aging are often interconnected.

Understanding those connections became the foundation of Dr. Kerendian’s approach to medicine—and ultimately the philosophy behind Delight Medical & Wellness Center.

Why Health Optimization?

Dr. Kerendian has always believed that medicine should do more than wait for disease to appear.

Traditional medical care is essential when someone becomes sick. But many patients spend years experiencing declining energy, increasing weight, worsening body composition, hormonal changes, metabolic abnormalities, loss of strength or reduced mobility before they develop a disease that demands treatment.

Too often, those changes are simply attributed to aging.

Dr. Kerendian believes there is another important question physicians should ask:

What can we reasonably improve before it becomes a bigger problem?

He often explains the concept using a tree.

If a tree repeatedly develops unhealthy branches, you can keep trimming those branches.

But sometimes you also need to look beneath the surface.

Is the tree getting the water, nutrients and environment it needs to grow well from its roots?

Dr. Kerendian approaches health similarly.

Treating symptoms and disease remains important. But when possible, he also wants to understand the underlying physiology contributing to the problem and determine whether there are meaningful opportunities to improve it.

That’s the foundation of Health Optimization.

More Than 20 Years in Obesity Medicine & Weight Management

Weight management has been one of the defining areas of Dr. Kerendian’s medical career.

He founded Delight Medical & Wellness Center in Los Angeles in 2005, with medical weight management becoming a major focus of the practice from its earliest years.

Long before today’s generation of GLP-1 medications transformed obesity treatment, Dr. Kerendian was helping patients understand that excess weight is rarely explained by willpower alone.

Genetics, insulin resistance, hormones, sleep, medications, stress, aging, body composition, lifestyle and other medical factors can all influence a person’s ability to lose and maintain weight.

That experience ultimately helped shape his broader philosophy of Health Optimization.

Because after treating weight for thousands of patients, one lesson becomes difficult to ignore:

Weight is rarely just about weight.

Improving someone’s weight may reveal hormonal issues.

Treating hormonal problems may improve body composition, energy or sexual health.

Improving knee pain may allow someone to become physically active again.

Improving sleep may influence appetite, metabolism and energy.

And identifying metabolic or cardiovascular risk factors may help prevent problems that the patient didn’t even know were developing.

Dr. Kerendian therefore views obesity medicine as an important part of a much larger objective:

Helping patients become healthier—not simply lighter.

Treat the Patient, Not Just the Number

Laboratory testing is an important part of modern medicine.

But Dr. Kerendian doesn’t believe a patient should be reduced to a collection of laboratory values.

A result that falls inside a reference range does not automatically explain why someone feels poorly—and a result outside a range doesn’t necessarily tell the entire story either.

The patient’s symptoms, medical history, body composition, medications, lifestyle, goals, age and risk factors all provide important context.

This philosophy is particularly relevant in areas such as metabolic health, obesity medicine, menopause and men’s hormonal health, where multiple physiological systems may contribute to similar symptoms.

The objective isn’t to make every laboratory number “perfect.”

It’s to determine:

• What is medically significant?
• What may be contributing to the patient’s symptoms or future risk?
• What can reasonably be improved?
• And which interventions actually make sense for this individual?

Sometimes that includes medication.

Sometimes hormones.

Sometimes weight reduction.

Sometimes improving nutrition, sleep, strength or body composition.

Sometimes a procedure.

And sometimes good medicine means determining that no treatment is necessary at all.

Health Optimization Is Not Anti-Aging

Dr. Kerendian doesn’t believe medicine can—or should—promise to stop aging.

Aging is part of life.

But living longer has changed what patients should expect from healthcare.

For many people, their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond represent decades in which they want to remain professionally active, travel, maintain relationships, exercise, enjoy their families and continue doing the things that give their lives meaning.

Living longer matters more when we preserve the health and function to enjoy those years.

Some changes are inevitable with age.

Others deserve evaluation rather than automatically being dismissed as:

“You’re just getting older.”

Dr. Kerendian’s goal is not to make patients 25 again.

It is to help them identify realistic opportunities to maintain or improve their health, function and quality of life as they age.

Areas of Clinical Focus

Dr. Kerendian’s clinical experience and current practice include several interconnected areas of medicine:

Obesity Medicine & Medical Weight Management

Physician-guided weight management addressing metabolic health, body composition, lifestyle, nutrition and appropriate medications.

Men’s Health & Testosterone

Evaluation of men experiencing symptoms potentially associated with testosterone deficiency, with medically appropriate testosterone replacement and ongoing monitoring for qualifying patients.

Menopause & Women’s Hormone Health

Evaluation of perimenopausal and menopausal changes involving weight, body composition, sleep, energy, sexual health and hormones, with individualized treatment when appropriate.

Metabolic & Preventive Health

Identification of modifiable metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors with an emphasis on improving long-term health before preventable disease progresses.

Sexual Health

Evaluation of physiological and hormonal factors that may contribute to changes in libido and sexual function in both men and women.

Musculoskeletal & Joint Health

A background in osteopathic and musculoskeletal medicine, including the evaluation and treatment of joint and knee conditions and appropriate use of regenerative and nonsurgical therapies.

Healthy Aging & Health Optimization

Bringing these disciplines together to help patients preserve metabolic health, strength, mobility, hormonal health and quality of life as they age.

Education, Training & Professional Experience

Dr. Kerendian graduated from Western University of Health Sciences, College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, in 2001 with his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree.

He completed his Family Practice residency at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, with training associated with the medical education programs of the region.

Following residency, his early clinical experience included work in family medicine, emergency and urgent care, musculoskeletal and orthopedic medicine, prolotherapy and pain management.

Rather than remaining within one narrow area of medicine, those experiences exposed him to patients with very different problems—and helped shape the multidisciplinary approach he later brought to Delight Medical.

In 2005, he founded Delight Medical & Wellness Center in Los Angeles.

Over the following two decades, his clinical focus increasingly centered on obesity medicine and medical weight management, hormone and sexual health, metabolic medicine, musculoskeletal care and preventive health.

Dr. Kerendian has previously participated in professional organizations related to obesity, sexual medicine, menopause and regenerative medicine, including the American Society of Bariatric Physicians/Obesity Medicine Association, International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health, Sexual Medicine Society of North America, International Society for Sexual Medicine, and The Menopause Society.

His additional musculoskeletal and regenerative-medicine education has included training through organizations such as the American Osteopathic Association of Prolotherapy Regenerative Medicine and The Orthobiologic Institute.

Dr. Kerendian has also served as a clinical preceptor for students from Western University of Health Sciences, helping contribute to the education of future healthcare professionals.

Serving Los Angeles for More Than Two Decades

Delight Medical has cared for patients throughout the Los Angeles area since 2005.

Beginning in 2009, the practice also developed a longstanding relationship caring for members of the Los Angeles first-responder community.

Dr. Kerendian values these long-term relationships because Health Optimization is rarely accomplished during a single appointment.

Bodies change.

Goals change.

Medicine changes.

And the strategy that made sense for someone at 42 may not be the strategy they need at 52 or 62.

For many patients, Delight Medical becomes a long-term partner in navigating those changes.

A Physician-Guided Approach in an Era of Quick-Fix Medicine

Patients today have unprecedented access to health information—and unprecedented access to treatments.

Weight-loss medications, hormones, supplements, peptides and other therapies can increasingly be found online, sometimes with very little meaningful medical evaluation.

Dr. Kerendian believes access to a treatment and knowing whether that treatment is right for a particular person are two very different things.

Medications and procedures are tools.

The physician’s role is strategy.

That means understanding the patient’s goals, symptoms, medical history, laboratory findings, risks and alternatives before deciding what belongs in the toolbox.

New treatments deserve an open mind.

They also deserve medical judgment.

That balance—remaining current without chasing every trend—is an important part of the Delight Medical philosophy.

Start With What You Want to Improve

Patients don’t need to arrive at Delight Medical knowing their diagnosis.

They don’t even need to know which treatment they want.

Often, they simply know that something has changed.

• Their weight.
• Their energy.
• Their libido.
• Their strength.
• Their hormones.
• Their sleep.
• Their mobility.
• Or simply how they feel compared with a few years ago.

That’s enough to start a conversation.

Dr. Kerendian’s job is to help determine why, identify what is medically meaningful, and decide what—if anything—can reasonably be improved.

Because healthcare shouldn’t only begin when you become sick.

Sometimes it should begin with a much better question:

How can I become healthier from where I am today?

Patient Reviews