Complications of obesity

Excess body weight contributes to the shortening of life expectancy, increases the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, atherosclerosis, predisposes to the development of diabetes mellitus.

Hypertensive disease occurs 4.5 times more often in obese individuals than in the general population. There is an indisputable relationship between the level of arterial pressure and the degree of excess body weight and the nature of the distribution of subcutaneous fat. The most common development of hypertension is observed in the android type of fat deposition. Pathogenetic mechanisms of hypertension syndrome with obesity are complex and not completely clarified. Significant violations of central regulatory mechanisms, increased peripheral vascular resistance, increased functional activity of the adrenal cortex, hyperinsulinemia, metabolic shifts.

Excess body weight is one of the important risk factors for the development of coronary heart disease. This is due to the accompanying insulin resistance hyperinsulinemia, dyslipidemia, arterial hypertension, changes in coagulating and fibrinolytic properties of blood.

In patients with obesity, there is often a pathology of the hepatobiliary system - a violation of the liver function, its fatty infiltration, cholangitis, cholelithiasis. For its development of great importance are disorders of cholesterol metabolism, changes in the physico-chemical properties of bile, difficulty in bile secretion.

With the increase in body weight, the risk of cancer increases: in men - prostate cancer, rectum, in women - breast cancer, endometrium, ovaries, gall bladder.

With obesity, as a rule, there are some symptoms of nervous system damage: sleep disturbances, increased appetite, thirst, astheno-neurotic manifestations.

A severe complication in patients with obesity of grades III-IV is the development of the hypoventilation syndrome of the obese (Pickwick syndrome), characterized by hypoventilation, a violation of the sensitivity of the respiratory center to hypoxia, hypercapnia in combination with the pathology of the respiratory rhythm and frequent and prolonged periods of apnea (obstructive, central or mixed genesis ), pulmonary hypertension, cardiopulmonary insufficiency, CNS damage, in the form of sleep disturbances, compensated daytime drowsiness, depression, headaches. In the pathogenesis of this syndrome, changes in the mechanical properties of the chest, diaphragm, functional state of the respiratory center, neuromuscular conduction are important.

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