Janet Bond Brill - Intermittent Fasting For Dummies

In today’s looks-obsessed society, many people are more concerned that being overweight is an appearance issue. But being overweight is a lot more than aesthetics. A BMI higher than 25 is a medical concern because it can seriously affect your health.

If you know that your BMI is above 25 and that the extra poundage is from too much fat and not muscle, then read on to see the toll that this condition can eventually take on your body.

Too much body fat is bad news for both your body and mind. Not only can being overweight make you feel tired and uncomfortable, carrying extra weight also puts added stress on your body, especially the bones and joints of the legs. The more body fat you have, the greater your risk of developing grave health conditions.

If you’re overweight, you may feel perfectly fine. However, the extra body fat puts an insidious strain on your bodily processes. Luckily, it’s never too late to make positive lifestyle changes such as following an intermittent fasting plan. This action can prevent additional weight gain and promote loss of body fat, which will prevent or alleviate many of the the following health problems associated with being overweight.

Heart disease is the leading killer of both men and women in the United States. The American Heart Association has now recognized overweight and obesity as a major, independent risk factor for heart disease. Excess body fat taxes the heart. People who have excess body fat — especially if concentrated around the waist — are more likely to have a heart attack than those people at a healthy weight. The good news is, if you’re overweight or obese, you can significantly reduce your risk for heart disease by successfully losing weight and keeping it off.

High blood pressure is also known as the silent killer because it’s largely a symptomless disease. The fact that high blood pressure doesn’t have symptoms (you can’t see or feel it) is what makes high blood pressure so insidious; left untreated, it will kill you. In fact, high blood pressure remains the most common medical diagnosis in the United States and the condition that doctors write the most prescriptions for. It’s also the number one cause of stroke and kidney disease and a principal cause of heart disease and blindness.

Overweight people are five times more likely to have high blood pressure than normal weight individuals. The more body fat a person carries, the more blood is needed to provide the tissue with oxygen and nutrients, resulting in higher blood pressure. Researchers have found that extra body fat activates the two underlying origins of elevated pressure: an overactive sympathetic nervous system and an overactive renin (blood pressure hormone) system. The good news is that if you lose body fat, your blood pressure will significantly go down.

Every year, more than 800,000 people in the United States have a stroke. Stroke kills almost 130,000 Americans annually and is a leading cause of serious long-term disability. On average, one American dies from stroke every four minutes. If you’re overweight, your risk of having a stroke significantly increases because of inflammation occurring in the arteries. Inflammation is partially caused by excess fat and can lead to difficulty in blood flow and an increased risk of blockage in the arteries. Excess body fat has also been shown to increase risk of stroke/transient ischemic attack (also known as a mini-stroke ).

Type 2 diabetes develops when a person has insulin resistance. Insulin is the hormone that enables sugar (glucose) to enter cells. Insulin resistance means that the body’s cells are no longer sensitive to insulin and can’t use it correctly. This loss in sensitivity to insulin means the person begins to lose the ability to take in glucose.

Excess body fat, especially around the abdomen, is a major cause of insulin resistance. The development of insulin resistance marks the beginning of diabetes. In time, the resistance to insulin exhausts the pancreas, which may stop producing this hormone entirely, meaning the diabetic must inject insulin. A program of regular exercise and weight loss has been shown to reverse insulin resistance.

One out of every five individuals who is affected by excess body weight has a metabolic condition known as Syndrome X. Syndrome X is a cluster of metabolic factors that increases your risk for disease. The issues that characterize this condition include high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and abdominal belly fat. People with Syndrome X are at a significantly increased risk for developing more serious health problems including heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.

Being overweight can directly affect your kidneys. Extra body fat forces the kidneys to work harder and filter wastes above the normal level. Over time, this extra work increases the risk for kidney disease. Being overweight is also associated with an increased progression of the disease to kidney failure.

Losing weight can prevent damage to the kidneys and has also been shown to slow disease progression in people already diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. Trimming down to a healthy body weight can reduce your risk of developing obstructive sleep apnea, increased urine protein excretion, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure, which in turn will lower your risk for developing kidney disease.

Higher amounts of body fat are associated with increased risks of a number of cancers. Being overweight increases your risk of developing the following types of cancer (Figure 4-1 shows these 13 types of cancers, which account for about 40 percent of all cancer):

Meningioma

Adenocarcinoma

Multiple myeloma

Kidney cancer

Uterine cancer

Ovarian cancer

Thyroid cancer

Breast cancer

Liver cancer

Gallbladder cancer

Upper stomach cancer

Pancreatic cancer

Colon and rectal cancer

Source: www.cdc.gov

FIGURE 4-1:Thirteen cancers associated with being overweight.

Abnormal blood fats, also known as dyslipidemia, refers to an imbalance of fats circulating in your bloodstream. Being overweight increases the odds of you having a heart attack or stroke by raising the level of artery-clogging blood fats such as triglycerides and LDL cholesterol (which is considered the bad kind of cholesterol). Abdominal obesity also results in reduced levels of HDL cholesterol (the good kind that protects against heart disease).

Gallstones are hardened cholesterol deposits that develop in the gallbladder, a small organ in the upper right abdomen just below the liver. Excess body weight makes it more difficult for the gallbladder to empty, allowing cholesterol-rich bile to accumulate and harden into stones. Being overweight also exposes you to increased risk of gallstone-related complications and cholecystectomy (surgical removal of the gall bladder).