Obesity health risks

Health Hazards of Obesity

Obesity almost leads to several health risks and can subtract 15-20 years from your life. Here are the top 20 health risks and complications, which commonly arise among obese individuals.

 
Hypertension (High blood pressure): An obese person is about 2 times more susceptible to a hypertension than a normal weight individual is.

Heart problems: The prevalence of heart diseases like angina pectoris, stroke, coronary artery disease, heart attack is higher among obese people. These people usually have high levels of blood fat and cholesterol, which are the reasons of most heart problems.

Type 2 (non-insulin dependent) Diabetes: Type 2 diabetes gives the body to control blood glucose levels and is a major etiological cause of kidney problems, heart problems and blindness. Obesity increases the proneness to diabetes by at least 2 times.

Gallbladder Disease: Increase in body weight increases the risk of gallbladder diseases and gallstones.

Gout: This is a disease of joints induced by uric acid deposition in the joints and commonly occurs among obese people.

Osteoarthritis: This is another joint disease. Excess body weight exerts more pressure on joints wearing out the tissue that pads the joints leading to osteoarthritis. Losing weight may help relieve osteoarthritis.

Sleep apnea: Patients suffering from this condition snore heavily and miss breathing for small periods while sleeping. This is a serious condition that may lead to a heart failure.

Respiratory Insufficiency: In an individual suffering from severe obesity, the size of lungs reduces, chest wall becomes heavy and hard to rise, and oxygen supply is much lesser than needed. All these cause breathlessness after a slight exertion among obese people.

Cancer: Obesity increases the susceptibility to cancers of uterus, ovary, cervix, breast, gallbladder and colon among women and that of colon, prostate and rectum among men.

Female Reproductive Health: Obese women often suffer from irregular menstrual periods, irregular ovulation and infertility.

Complications during Pregnancy: Obesity causes problems like gestational hypertension and diabetes, preeclampsia and may complicate the delivery.

Dysmetabolic Syndrome X: In this condition, blood fat levels raise abnormally, insulin sensitivity changes, arteries become inflamed and there is an increased risk of heart attack.

Obesity Hypoventilation Syndrome: This involves buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood. Its major symptom includes drowsiness during wake hours. Obese people may develop this disorder.

Heartburn: There is a parallelism between obesity and heartburn. Among obese individuals, the stomach acids seep back into the esophagus more often causing heartburn.

Asthma and Bronchitis: Seeping back of stomach acids into the lungs may cause asthma and bronchitis.

Stress Urinary Incontinence: Heavy abdomen among severely obese individuals may weaken the valve of urinary bladder, causing the leakage of urine with laughing, coughing or sneezing.

Degenerative Disease of Lumbo-Sacral Spine: Since the spine bears the whole weight of the body, obesity constantly stresses the spine, wearing it out. This may lead to arthritis of spine or displace the cartilage between the vertebrae.

Emotional or Psychological Disease: Obesity may lead to depression, dejection, which may be an outcome of repeated letdowns with dieting or exercise, criticism from friends and family, comments from strangers.

Increased surgical risk: It is difficult to do any surgery on obese individuals.

Venous Stasis Disease: these occur when the enlarged vein does not provide adequate drainage of fluid from the skin, the swollen skin receives insufficient oxygen and an ulcer forms.