Obesity is a big issue. It has become so common among us now that we don’t even consider the ill effects of it. We all have accepted overweight as wearing a size larger than what we are generally used to. But the trouble doesn’t end here. It just starts here.
The physical change in our body is perhaps not as alarming as the effects our body goes inside.
The doctors at Capitol Hospital will be stressing on this alarming issue, which we don’t pay much heed to.
Heart diseases are closely related to obesity. Heart diseases are an umbrella of diseases that can have an adverse effect on your heart and harm your health. Diseases like heart attack, chest pain, heart failure all these are part of heart diseases.
HUMAN HEART
The heart is a vital organ in humans, which pumps blood through the heart vessels. It is present in the middle of our chest. The heart is the main part of our circulatory system. The blood which is pumped to various parts of the body contains oxygen and nutrients. The heart is also involved in removing different types of metabolic wastes.
HEART AND YOUR WAIST SIZE
From quite some time, researchers were trying to find a relation between the size and excess fat tissue in the waist and risk of heart diseases.
Three types of people: normal, overweight and obese were evaluated in this study. All the people involved in the study were subjected to echocardiogram exam to measure the health of the heart, its dimensions, and the muscle thickness. The results were not surprising. Overweight and people who were obese were more likely to get abnormal diastolic function than individuals who were in the normal range of BMI.
The risk of other diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar was also more in the obese people.
As the BMI increases above obese range, the risk of abnormalities in the heart also increases.
According to statistics, women with waist size more than 35 inches and men with waist size more than 40 inches are more probable to get diseases related to obesity.
HOW OUR HEART SUFFERS BECAUSE OF OVERWEIGHT
The human heart pumps blood and when a person is overweight or obese, it becomes harder for the heart to do this vital task. Excess weight and the fatty tissue don’t help the heart and make it difficult to send oxygen and other vital nutrients to other parts of our body. Being overweight, makes your heart work more to pump blood everywhere.
Suppose you are running with no weights. You can reach up to some point before you will get tired. Now imagine running the same distance with an extra 30 to 40 kgs of weight. It will be so much overwork for your body and you will get tired easily and won’t be able to run the same distance that you did previously when you were not carrying any weights. Similarly, this analogy can be put to our heart too. The overwork on our heart has consequences.
Overweight people also experience difficulty breathing.
Being obese can also lower your life expectancy. This has no relation to cardiovascular disease. Irrespective of whether you have heart disease or not, if you are overweight, your life expectancy reduces as compared to a person who has normal BMI.
Weight loss may improve your blood pressure, cholesterol which in turn will reduce your risk of cardiovascular diseases.
