Obesity

Obesity is an increasingly common problem, because modern lifestyles often promote eating excessive amounts of high-calorie food and sedentary work habits.

Apart from increased intake of energy rich foods and decreased exercise and physical activity, hormones and genes also play a role in obesity and overweight

Obesity is a systemic disease and mutually related with hormonal imbalance. If you become obese because of your lifestyle sooner or later your hormone system will disturb and produce so many other disorders.

And if your hormonal system get disturb because of stress, functional or organic disease of endorcrine system, sooner or later you will become obese. The hormones which are related to obesity

  • Thyroid hormone – low level of thyroid hormone causes obesity.
  • Estrogen – it is secreted by ovary and fat cell. It is responsible for body fat distribution in females, therefore any long time imbalance of this hormone may alter body fat distribution or create obesity. With the same manner more obese person may have estrogen imbalance and generate many ovarian and uterine diseases.
  • Androgen- androgens are made and secreted by testes. Older men tend to increase storage of fat around the abdomen (apple shape). This increases their risk of disease
  • Growth hormone
  • Leptin
  • Insulin

 Cause of obesity

  • To eat food having more calories than required by your body
  • No or less physical activity
  • Functional or organic hormonal disorder which affect the fat metabolism
  • poor sleep
  • stress – it disturbs the hormonal system and generate obesity
  • polycystic ovarian syndrome – a female disease arises due to hormonal imbalance
  • cushing’s syndrome – a hormonal disease which causes obesity

Complication

Obesity leads to much more than simple weight gain. It also increases inflammation in the body, which is thought to be a cause of cancer.

Obesity has been linked to a number of health complications, some of which are life-threatening:

  •  diabetes type 2
  • heart disease
  • high blood pressure
  • certain cancers (breast, colon, and endometrial)
  • stroke
  • liver and gallbladder disease
  • high cholesterol
  • sleep apnea and other breathing problems
  • arthritis
  • infertility

Treatment

Obesity due to lifestyle

Weight loss program takes time and commitment . The best way to treat obesity is to eat a healthy, reduced-calorie diet and to exercise regularly. To do this you should:

  • eat a balanced, calorie-controlled diet as recommended by dietician
  • join a local weight loss group
  • take up activities such as fast walking, jogging, swimming or tennis for 150-300 minutes a week
  • eat slowly and avoid situations where you know you could be tempted to overeat

Obesity due to hormonal disorder

  • It needs medicine to treat hormonal disturbances because you couldn’t overcome obesity with hormonal disturbance.
  • Balanced diet + regular exercise along with medicine will help you to overcome obesity.