NEW YORK. - The plight of the Dominican Yubelkis Vargas, 40, who weighs more than 1,000 pounds as the result of chronic obesity, has been made public by Hispanic television networks in the United States.

The woman, who has been bedridden since October 2009, asked in an interview from the Buenos Aires de Herrera sector, where she lives with her father, asked the authorities to help her in her misfortune.

Yesterday the philanthropist physician Antonio Cruz Jiminián said he would assume Vargas’ case and vowed that she’ll soon begin to recover.

The story stirred the curiosity and prompted commentaries from dozens of Dominicans who saw in on television.

So far the most known and impressive chronic obesity case in the United States doesn’t exceed 500 pounds.

The world’s most obese woman was Carol Yager, who died in 1994, weighing 1,450 pounds and the most obese man was Jon Brower Minnoch, who died in 1983 weighing around 650 pounds, after managing to lose more than half his original weight.