Cause of Obesity and Its treatment

Obesity is a unique disease which can practically affect any system in the body. The effects of obesity can be varied based on the weight related effects or hormonal effects. The weight related effects are obvious like wear and tear of knee joints or the spine.

 Excess weight on the joints as well as the change in posture or centre of gravity makes the joints weak and painful. Excess weight in the body also increases the load on the lungs and may induce breathlessness which can slowly give rise to sleep apnoea or disturbed sleep and snoring. The hormonal effects of obesity are on different systems an can induce chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol and even may lead to affection of kidneys and/or heart. Fat is also known as the largest endocrine organ in the body. Fat can convert the female hormone to male hormone in a female which is seen as excess hair growth (hirsutism) or infertility in a female. In males, hormones from the fat can reduce the testosterone levels and the person would have related symptoms like development of male breasts, indrawing of sexual organs, reduced sexual libido or even reduced sperm count or quality. Hence it is said that treating obesity is equivalent to preventing many diseases.

Cause of Obesity

Obesity is known as a multifactorial disease. People do try to correlate obesity to something or other which often may not be the reason. The types and grades of obesity are known as mild-overweight .obese or morbid obesity. Some have more fat in the belly and some others have it around the waist, hips or thighs. These are generally coded genetically. The types of obesity can also be defined on the fat percentage in the body. Each of these different types may have different impact on the diseases or psychological impacts induced. There are many causes of obesity which can be controlled by a human being to some extent, like type of food, choice of healthier option, being active, etc. However, in spite of attempting these, resistant obesity prevails. This is because of the factors beyond human control which could be genetics or metabolism or intestinal length or function. Even certain environmental factors can not be controlled. However, there is always a scientific solution and hence the treatment has to be from a qualified obesity expert team.

Type 2 diabetes is primarily the result of two interrelated problems:

• Cells in muscle, fat and the liver become resistant to insulin. Because these cells don't interact in a normal way with insulin, they don't take in enough sugar.

• The pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin to manage blood sugar levels.

Exactly why this happens is unknown, but being overweight and inactive are key contributing factors.

Treatment 

The primary goal for managing and treating obesity is to decrease a patient's medical risk and improve the quality of life. A weight management program combines physical activity, diet, behavioral modification, psychological counseling, and sometimes drug therapy to help patients achieve weight loss or prevent further weight gain.

Bariatric or Metabolic Surgery is generally reserved for patients who have repeatedly failed to lose weight by all other means (diet, exercise, behavioral, and drug therapy). 

Surgical treatment is medically necessary because it is the only proven method of achieving long term weight control for the morbidly obese.

Surgical treatments are now safe, can be performed key-hole and as day-care procedures. Surgical procedures give significant loss of excess weight and can reverse conditions like joint pain, breathlessness, snoring, infertility, sexual dysfunction, urine incontinence, headaches, and migraines, etc. 

Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery is the only modality that can totally reverse or improve diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, high cholesterol or lipids, kidney dysfunction, osteoarthritis etc which are secondary to obesity.

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