Weight Loss and body mechanism

WEIGHT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE 

It would be a fallacy to say that obesity is ever the one and only cause of a death. But the association between overweight and excessive death rates is unmistakable. Among overweight men, mortality from all causes is 150 percent that for other men; among overweight women, 147 per- cent that for other women. 

As for individual diseases, insurance statistics show that overweight men and overweight women, respectively, have these excesses of mortality as compared with the general population: 142 and 175 percent for heart attacks; 159 and 162 percent for cerebral hemorrhage; 191 and 212 percent for chronic nephritis (kidney disease); 168 and 211 percent for liver and gallbladder cancer; 383 and 372 per- cent for diabetes; 249 and 147 percent for cirrhosis of the liver; 154 and ) percent for hernia and intestinal obstruction; 152 and 188 percent f or non -cancerous gallbladder diseases. Obvert is associated with many diverse types of health hazards. There are breathing difficulties, since the greater the weight in the chest.

wall, the greater the work involved in breathing. With their increased difficulty in breathing, obese people have less tolerance for exercise. They have a higher rate of respiratory infection than do people of normal weight. They may experience two complications related to their breathing problem: lethargy may develop because of accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood from decreased ventilation; and as the result of reduced levels of oxygen in the blood, the body, trying to compensate, may produce increased amounts of red blood cells. 

The latter condition, called polycythemia, often is responsible for the ruddy complexion of obese people. It may lead to blood-clotting problems. Heart enlargement and congestive heart failure attributable to obesity have been reported. Many studies have established that more hypertension, or high blood pressure, exists among the obese than among the non-obese, that the obese hypertensive experiences a greater risk of coronary heart disease than the non-obese hypertensive, and that mortality rates for obese hypertensive persons are greater than for others with obesity alone or hypertension alone. Obese people often have impaired carbohydrate tolerance that may be sufficient in degree to be classified as diabetes.

Difficulties during anesthesia and surgery have been associated with obesity. In women with significant degrees of obesity, menstrual abnormalities and abnormal hair growth (hairsutism) have been observed with some frequency. For pregnant women, obesity can be a hazard in several ways: it is associated with a greater incidence of toxemia, of complications during delivery, and of stillbirths. Some skin problems are related to obesity. Thus, the extra surface area of the skin in the obese person may lead to excessive perspiration, and the juxtaposition of moist skin areas in adjacent folds may lead to boils, fungal infections, and other inflammatory conditions.

It has been well established that in many health problems, significant benefits often follow loss of weight. Among such conditions are hyper- tension, angina pectoris, congestive heart failure, varicose veins, rupture of intervertebral disks, osteoarthritis, and many other varieties of bone and joint disease. And certainly not to be omitted from even a partial list, many foot aches and backaches may be relieved to a significant extent, sometimes even completely, by weight loss.