There’s motivation to lose weight in virtually every aspect of your health. Even when you target weight loss efforts to treat one condition, you’re reducing your risk for a wide range of others. In fact, controlling weight is one of the best and most positive ways to focus on your overall wellness.

When you’re ready to take positive steps toward healthy weight loss, contact the practice of Siatta B. Dunbar, DO, in Burnsville, Minnesota. At Saravit Wellness, Dr. Dunbar and her team specialize in medically supervised health, wellness, and weight loss coaching, giving you the tools and encouragement to make the lifestyle changes necessary for a sustainable, healthy weight.

Today, we examine 10 ways that carrying extra weight negatively impacts your health.

Being overweight links with higher risks for some forms of cancer including breast, colon, kidney, prostate, and uterine cancers. The National Cancer Institute estimates that 50,000 women and 34,000 men develop obesity-related cancers every year.

The balance between so-called good and bad cholesterol swings in favor of the bad component — LDL — when you’re overweight. High levels of LDL raise your risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attack and stroke. You require both weight loss and dietary changes to control cholesterol sufficiently without medication.

Carrying too much weight causes changes in your body that resist the effects of insulin. When this occurs, blood sugar no longer works efficiently as body fuel and builds to dangerously high levels, causing tissue damage throughout your body. Diabetes can lead to amputations, blindness, and other health issues.

When you’re overweight, extra tissue contributes to the collapse of your airways as you sleep. Your throat closes and cuts off oxygen, forcing your brain to wake you slightly throughout the night. This condition, called obstructive sleep apnea, connects with other health conditions such as diabetes and heart problems.

Also known as high blood pressure, hypertension commonly occurs in overweight people. Your heart works harder to pump blood over greater distances, pressing excessively against blood vessel walls. Untreated hypertension alone can be fatal or a contributor to other health issues.

Problems related to obesity can jeopardize a woman’s ability to become pregnant. Conditions that accompany pregnancy may have heavier symptoms and could increase chances of premature delivery.

Arthritic conditions such as rheumatoid and osteoarthritis cause deterioration of joints, and your weight-bearing joints like knees and hips suffer disproportionately. Not only do they carry the burden of your extra pounds, changes to your center of gravity can cause additional forces to add to their load.

Excess weight aggravates hardening of the arteries, a risk factor that often contributes to heart attacks.

Constipation, bloating, heartburn, and gallbladder disease may all connect back to obesity.

Estimates put obesity-related death second behind smoking as the leading preventable cause of death in the United States.

Taking charge of your weight may be easier than you think with the right support group and medical supervision. Call our office in Burnsville, Minnesota, today.

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