Obesity should be seen as a potentially chronic disease.🍨🍩🍪

Obesity is not just a physical problem, but a disease that needs attention and treatment. In December 2016, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and the American Endocrinologists Association issued a statement suggesting that a new medical diagnostic term for obesity-based chronic diseases. It was intended to emphasize that obesity affect health and need to control and manage complications as the chronic diseases. 

With the improvement of living standards and changes in lifestyles, the incidence of obesity is showing an obviously increasing. People are paying more and more attention to chronic diseases. The incidences of hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes are also increasing year by year. More researches believe that obesity has become one of the important predisposing factors for many chronic diseases. World Health Organization recognize obesity as the fifth largest risk factor affecting health and can easily lead to many serious complications.

1. Obesity and cardiovascular disease

Obesity can cause the body's fat metabolism disorder which further leads to the occurrence of hyperlipidemia and hypertension. With the increase of BMI, the incidence of hyperlipidemia and hypertension gradually increases.

Adipocytes proliferate and increase in number, the number of insulin receptors on the surface of hypertrophic adipocytes is relatively reduced and insulin affinity decreases. It results in insulin resistance. This may be one of the reasons that obesity leads to abnormal lipid metabolism and causes hyperlipidemia. The mechanism of obesity-induced hypertension may be related to the comprehensive effects of  the immune system, the sympathetic nervous system and the renin-angiotensin system. 

2. Obesity and diabetes

Overweight and obesity are one of the important risk factors related to the onset of diabetes. As the BMI level increases, the risk of disease increases.

The possible mechanism is that excessive eating will cause a large increase in blood sugar and stimulate the islet cells to secrete a large amount of insulin to maintain blood sugar in the normal blood sugar range. It cannot meet the body's requirement for glucose metabolism regulation and cause increased blood sugar. The excess body fat of overweight and obese people leads to the enhancement of fat degradation. Glycogen utilization is impaired, glucose oxidative metabolism decreases and blood sugar rises. In addition, the liver intake of insulin is reduced which leads to an increase in insulin concentration in the body. It leads to hyperinsulinemia and causes down-regulation of insulin receptor expression and insulin resistance.

3. Obesity and hyperuricemia

Uric acid is the end product of purine metabolism which is mainly derived from the enzyme decomposition of nucleic acids and other purine compounds and purine components in food. More and more studies have shown that hyperuricemia is an important component of metabolic syndrome. It has a certain relationship with obesity. Obese people are more likely to suffer from hyperuricemia. Obesity, especially abdominal obesity, is closely related to hyperuricemia. 

The possible mechanisms are: 

1. Too much energy intake, increased purine synthesis in the body and increased uric acid. 

2. Too much eating and too little consumption. It leads to the accumulation of excessive visceral fat and when the liver fatty acid synthesis is hyperactive. It eventually leads to the synthesis of triglyceride and the production of uric acid are hyperactive. 

3. Insulin resistance leads to a decrease in uric acid excretion.

Insulin resistance is one of the main pathophysiological mechanisms of metabolic syndrome and obesity is the theory that leads to the most evidence of insulin resistance.

4. Obesity and other complications

Lungs: The lungs are squeezed by fat. The breathing becomes difficult and it is difficult for the blood to carry out effective oxygen circulation. That can damage the immune system and cause high blood pressure.

Joint: Obesity will increase the weight-bearing of joints such as wrists and knees. It cause osteoarthritis. Obese people are much more likely to develop arthritis than ordinary people.

Intestinal: The fat accumulated around the internal organs will continue to secrete a large number of hormones or chemicals, which will cause changes in metabolism and cause type 2 diabetes. In addition, the secreted hormones can cause endocrine disorders and cause polycystic ovary syndrome, which can have a certain impact on women's future fertility.