Being extremely overweight often leads to other diseases that can cause an early death. The good news is that these same illnesses often improve or completely disappear with safe, effective weight loss.
These are a few of the more common health conditions associated with obesity. Please contact your doctor for a more detailed and complete list.
Seriously overweight people face constant emotional challenges: repeated dieting failure; family, friend and public disapproval; and constant discrimination. These multiple emotional insults can lead to clinical depression.
Excess weight strains the heart, preventing it from functioning properly. This can cause high blood pressure and eventually strokes, heart disease and kidney damage.
Extremely obese women often experience menstruation difficulties, including cycle interruption, abnormal flow and increased pain during menstruation. Excessive weight can also increase a woman's chance of infertility or miscarriage. During pregnancy, a mother's obesity can create birth defects in the brain, spine and heart of an infant.
Additional weight on joints, particularly the knees and hips, causes painful wear and tear, as well as inflammation. Excess weight also strains the back muscles and bones, creating disk problems, pain and decreased mobility.
Fat deposits in the tongue and neck can cause intermittent obstruction of the air passage. Because the obstruction is increased when sleeping on your back, you may find yourself waking frequently to reposition yourself. Losing sleep leads to daytime drowsiness and headaches.
Overweight conditions weaken the stomach valve to the esophagus, causing stomach acid to leak into the esophagus. The result is gastroesophageal reflux, which leads to heartburn and acid indigestion.
Obese individuals develop a resistance to insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels. Over time, the increasingly high blood sugar can cause serious damage to the heart, kidneys, liver and other organs.
A large, heavy abdomen stretches the pelvic muscles and may cause the valve on the urinary bladder to get weak. This leads to urine leakage when coughing, sneezing or laughing.
If you have questions or want more information, please call us at 443-843-6360.
