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10 reasons you can't afford to be obese

[email protected] (Health Me Up)
August 29, 2014

ObeseObesity is by definition excess of fat storage rather than weight. Men with more than 25% of total body fat and women with more than 30% total body fat are considered obese.

There are many different ways to classify obesity. In accordance with endocrine and pathogen of the metabolic disease, obesity can be divided into simple obesity, secondary obesity and drug-induced obesity. Obesity, a growing health problem, is the door to a lot of illness and life threatening conditions that can make your life a living hell. Dr Ramen Goel, Head, Bariatric Surgery, Nova Specialty Surgery, Tardeo Mumbai, explains 10 reasons why obesity is bad for your health.

Type 2 diabetes

Obesity is one of the major causes of type 2 diabetes. Studies suggest that higher than normal body weight greatly increases the risk of getting diabetes. Uncontrolled diabetes in return leads to all serious complications such as high BP, heart attacks, brain strokes, blindness, kidney failures and nerve damages with amputations.

Heart attack

Obesity and overweight are linked to several factors that increase one's risk for cardiovascular disease (heart attack). Abdominal obesity or pot belly is said to be one of the major risk factors that can lead to heart ailments.

High blood pressure

Weight gain and hypertension are interconnected as increased weight raises the risk of developing high blood pressure. Weight reduction can actually help normalize the blood pressure. No wonder doctors recommend those suffering from hypertension to exercise and maintain their body weight.

Obstructive sleep apnea

Obesity results in obstructive sleep apnea where the person is not able to sleep well and snores, while remaining drowsy during the day. It is a respiratory problem in which breathing is stopped intermittently during sleep. Besides problem of sleep this results in high BP, heart failure etc.

Gout

An obese person is four times as likely to develop gout- a medical problem that affects joints, as someone with a normal body weight. In gout people have increased uric acid levels which results in painful, red and inflamed joints. With weight loss, the uric acid levels in the blood can decrease.

High cholesterol

One of the major risks in being overweight is the development of high cholesterol. Obesity increases the levels of triglycerides and bad cholesterol (LDL) in the body. Obese people generally have low levels of good cholesterol (HDL). High level of LDL and low level of HDL are major causes of atherosclerosis which results in narrowing of blood vessels leading to heart attack.

GERD

Recent research suggests that obesity is driving rise in people suffering from acid reflux. Obesity increases reflux because abdominal fat puts pressure on the ring of muscle at the bottom of the oesophagus - the 10-inch tube connecting the throat to the stomach - which normally prevents stomach acid from flowing back. The condition leads to heartburn.

Osteoarthritis

Being overweight puts extra stress on the joints, such as the knees, and consequently is a risk factor for developing osteoarthritis. Increased body weight puts more stress on joint surfaces causing damage.

Cancer

Medical research suggests that obesity plays an important role in cancer and that the lifetime risk of cancers is more among obese individuals. Obese people have higher chances of getting bowel, breast and esophageal cancers.

Heart failure

Worldwide research suggests that increased body-mass index is associated with an increased risk of heart failure.

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Agencies
July 7,2020

The World Health Organization (WHO) is reviewing a report that suggested its advice on the novel coronavirus needs updating after some scientists told the New York Times there was evidence the virus could be spread by tiny particles in the air.

The WHO says the Covid-19 disease spreads primarily through small droplets, which are expelled from the nose and mouth when an infected person breaths them out in coughs, sneezes, speech or laughter and quickly sink to the ground.

In an open letter to the Geneva-based agency, 239 scientists in 32 countries outlined the evidence they say shows that smaller exhaled particles can infect people who inhale them, the newspaper said on Saturday.

Because those smaller particles can linger in the air longer, the scientists - who plan to publish their findings in a scientific journal this week - are urging WHO to update its guidance, the Times said.

"We are aware of the article and are reviewing its contents with our technical experts," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email reply on Monday to a Reuters request for comment.

The extent to which the coronavirus can be spread by the so-called airborne or aerosol route - as opposed to by larger droplets in coughs and sneezes - remains disputed.

Any change in the WHO's assessment of the risk of transmission could affect its current advice on keeping one-metre physical distancing. Governments, which also rely on the agency for guidance policy, may also have to adjust public health measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

"Especially in the last couple of months, we have been stating several times that we consider airborne transmission as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence," Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO's technical lead for infection prevention and control, was quoted as saying in the New York Times.

WHO guidance to health workers, dated June 29, says that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and on surfaces.

But airborne transmission via smaller particles is possible in some circumstances, such as when performing intubation and aerosol-generating procedures, it says.

Medical workers performing such procedures should wear heavy-duty N95 respiratory masks and other protective equipment in an adequately ventilated room, the WHO says.

Officials at South Korea's Centers for Disease Control said on Monday they were continuing to discuss various issues about Covid-19, including the possible airborne transmission. They said more investigations and evidence were needed.

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News Network
February 22,2020

Feb 22: The subjective feeling of well-being experienced by many people with the practice of meditation is associated with specific changes in the brain, according to a study which may lead to better clinical recommendations of the practice.

The study, published in the journal Brain and Cognition, examined the effects of the technique known as Transcendental Meditation (TM), which consists of the silent repetition of a meaningless sound.

In the study, the researchers from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca in Italy, enrolled 34 healthy young volunteers and divided them in two groups.

They said the first group practised TM 40 minutes per day in two sessions of 20 minutes each, one in the morning and the other in the evening.

The second group, the scientists said, did not change its daily routine.

Using questionnaires, they also measured the anxiety and stress levels of all the participants at the beginning of the study, as well as the subjects' ability to manage stressful situations.

According to the researchers, the participants were also subjected to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scan, in order to measure the organ's activity at rest, and changes in the excitation among different cerebral areas.

They repeated the tests after three months, at the end of the study.

According to the study, the levels of anxiety and stress perceived by the subjects who followed the meditation program were significantly reduced in comparison with those of the volunteers who did not practice TM.

"Magnetic resonance imaging also shows that the reduction of anxiety levels is associated with specific changes in the connectivity between different cerebral areas, such as precuneus, left parietal lobe and insula, which all have an important role in the modulation of emotions and inner states," said study co-author Giulia Avvenuti from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca.

"In the control group, instead, none of these changes was observed. The fact that Transcendental Meditation has measurable effects on the 'dialogue' between brain structures involved in the modulation of affective states opens new perspectives for the understanding of brain-mind relationships," said Pietro Pietrini, IMT School's Director, and co-author of the study.

"It also extends the results of recent research suggesting that drugs therapies and psychotherapy leverage on the same biological mechanism," Pietrini said.

According to the researchers, even a few months of practice of TM can have positive effects which can be correlated with measurable changes in the brain.

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Agencies
May 25,2020

Singapore, May 25: COVID-19 patients are no longer infectious after 11 days of getting sick even though some may still test positive, according to a new study by infectious disease experts in Singapore.

A positive test "does not equate to infectiousness or viable virus," a joint research paper by Singapore's National Centre for Infectious Diseases and the Academy of Medicine, Singapore said. The virus "could not be isolated or cultured after day 11 of illness."

The paper was based on a study of 73 patents in the city-state.

The latest findings may have implications on the country's patient discharge policy. The discharge criteria is currently based on negative test results rather than infectiousness.

Singapore's strategy on managing COVID-19 patients is guided by the latest local and international clinical scientific evidence, and the Ministry of Health will evaluate if the latest evidence can be incorporated into its patient clinical management plan, according to a report by the Straits Times.

So far, 13,882, or about 45% of the total 31,068 Covid-19 patients in Singapore have been discharged from hospitals and community facilities. Singapore reported 642 new Covid-19 cases as of noon on Saturday.

The government has been actively screening pre-school staff as it prepares to reopen pre-schools from June 2. On Friday, two pre-school employees tested positive for the novel coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases among pre-school staff to seven, according to the Ministry of Health.

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