|
|
|
Comprehensive Weight Loss Center
What Causes Obesity?While many people are genetically predisposed to becoming obese, being seriously overweight is not caused by one single factor. Lifestyle, diet, culture, physical inactivity, age and gender, as well as certain psychological and genetic factors, all come into play.
Secondary causes of obesity include:
- Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism
- Cushing syndrome/Cushing’s disease
- Insulinoma
- Brain trauma or brain tumors
- Medications (e.g. antipsychotics, glucocorticoids, insulin)
- Sleep disorders (e.g. sleep apnea)
- Congenital obesity syndromes (rare)
- Prader-Willi syndrome
- Bardet-Biedl syndrome
- Lipodystrophy syndromes (abnormal deposits of fat tissue)
- Congenital generalized (no fat on the body since birth)
- Familial partial (fat only in certain areas)
- Acquired generalized (diffuse loss of fat)
- Acquired partial (loss of fat only in certain areas)
- Acquired lipodystrophy in HIV-infected patients
Understanding Metabolic SyndromeTo better understand obesity and determine the best approach for treating it, one must also understand something called metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome, which affects about 50 million Americans, is a cluster of metabolic risk factors in one person.
These include:
- Abdominal obesity (excessive fat tissue in and around the abdomen)
- Blood fat disorders — high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol and high LDL cholesterol — that foster plaque buildups in artery walls
- High blood pressure
- Insulin resistance or glucose intolerance (the body can’t properly use insulin or blood sugar)
- Prothrombotic state (e.g., high fibrinogen or plasminogen activator inhibitor–1 in the blood)
- Proinflammatory state (e.g., elevated C-reactive protein in the blood)
This combination of risk factors increases a person’s vulnerability to coronary artery disease and other related conditions such as stroke, peripheral vascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Other associated factors include physical inactivity, aging, hormonal imbalance and genetic predisposition.
The dominant underlying risk factors for metabolic syndrome appear to be abdominal obesity and insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is a generalized metabolic disorder in which the body can’t use insulin efficiently. This is why metabolic syndrome is also called insulin resistance syndrome.
How is metabolic syndrome diagnosed? The American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute recommend that it be identified as the presence of three or more of these components:
- Elevated waist circumference: men — equal to or greater than 40 inches (102 cm.); women — equal to or greater than 35 inches (88 cm.)
- Elevated triglycerides: equal to or greater than 150 mg/dL
- Reduced HDL (“good”) cholesterol: men — less than 40 mg/dL.; women — less than 50 mg/dL)
- Elevated blood pressure: equal to or greater than 130/85 mm Hg
- Elevated fasting glucose: equal to or greater than 100 mg/dL
Last Review Date: Feb. 16, 2010 Online Editor(s): Richard Petre |
|
|