Weight loss disease, weight gain disease Does gaining or losing weight depend only on willpower? Unintentional and rapid weight loss or gain is a health risk factor. Rather than blindly trying to control your weight, you should look to see if the numbers on the scale have changed due to illness. This is when the clothes or belts you normally wear become loose, or when socks are badly marked and shoes that fit well feel small. Learn about diseases that affect weight fluctuations and how to deal with them.
Weight loss <Cause> Cancer · Diabetes · Lung Disease In general, it is known that sudden weight loss is mainly caused by malignant tumors such as cancer. As cancer cells grow rapidly, energy consumption increases, resulting in weight loss. In fact, malignant tumors account for 19% to 36% of weight loss. This means that more than 60% of weight loss is due to causes other than malignant tumors. If digestion and absorption are not properly due to digestive diseases such as ulcers, endocrine diseases such as hyperthyroidism and diabetes, or inflammatory lung diseases, you will lose weight. Rapid weight loss with increased urination and frequent hunger could be a sign of diabetes. If you have a strong appetite and eat enough food, but lose weight and experience tremors in your limbs, you may suspect hyperthyroidism. When thyroid hormones are secreted excessively, metabolism becomes active, and even if you eat enough food, you lose weight. If weight loss and chest pain or shortness of breath appear, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD ) or tuberculosis can be suspected. When inflammation occurs in the body, the body’s immune system needs a lot of energy to fight the inflammation.Dental and drug problems People aged 60 and over should look into dementia, depression, drug side effects, and dental problems. This is often because chewing becomes uncomfortable and food intake decreases as activity decreases. Antibiotics, antidepressants, diabetes medications (metformin), and tranquilizers are associated with anorexia. Antihistamines and diuretics can cause dry mouth, and high blood pressure medications, iron supplements, and gout medications can also affect taste and smell, reducing food intake. The elderly often come to the hospital late because they think it is a natural change to lose their appetite and weight.<Countermeasure> The reason weight loss is dangerous is because it has a wide range of effects, from reduced immunity to mortality. If you lose more than 10% of your body weight, your immune system will be weakened due to a lack of protein and calories, making you vulnerable to infections. In addition, the lack of muscle increases the risk of pneumonia and fractures. In particular, when the elderly lose weight, severe wounds such as bedsores occur easily and recovery is slow. There is no energy and it is easy to get hurt, so the risk of hip fracture increases, which increases the risk of death.Medically significant weight loss is defined as a loss of 5% or more of normal body weight within the past year. For example, when a person weighing 60 kg experiences an unintentional loss of more than 3 kg. The hospital first checks the amount and duration of weight loss, and tests to find the cause. Changes in bowel habits such as diarrhea, blood tests, and imaging tests are performed depending on the symptom area if cancer is suspected. In addition, the usual amount and type of food, frequency of intake, and changes in exercise are also checked. Taking liquid nutritional supplements, such as high-calorie beverages, between meals can help you gain weight in a short period of time because they don’t make you feel full. If the appetite itself is too small, medications such as appetite stimulants may be required according to the prescription.〈Tip〉 If the cause is unknown,check the amount of alcohol you drink and take care of your protein. Even after various tests and follow-up, a quarter of patients cannot find a clear cause of weight loss. Even if the cause cannot be found, you need to deal with it so that complications due to weight loss do not appear. You should check your alcohol intake and exercise amount once again and see if there are any deficiencies in your calorie and protein intake.If the cause of weight loss is unclear, you can practice a diet in which milk or oil is added instead of water or two eggs are consumed a day to increase calories and protein intake in recipes. After about 3 months, there is no more weight loss, and there is a slight recovery. However, powdered protein supplements are not recommended as they may be associated with elevated liver levels.Weight gain is usually causedby hormonal imbalances, kidney, heart, and liver disease.
Weight gain <cause> hormonal imbalance Representative diseases that gain weight are Cushing’s syndrome, polycystic ovary syndrome, and hypothyroidism. What they have in common is that they are caused by an abnormality in the endocrine organ, which is a gland that produces hormones. When hormones are imbalanced, fat accumulates easily and swelling occurs, which leads to weight gain. If your limbs are thin and you gain weight in the form of a belly, it is a symptom of Cushing’s syndrome. It is caused by excessive secretion of the stress hormone cortisol. When there is a lump in the adrenal glands, which secrete hormones, or the pituitary gland in the brain, cortisol secretion is excessive. If your period stops, your voice becomes husky, and your legs grow a lot of hair, it is related to polycystic ovary syndrome. The balance between male and female hormone secretion is disturbed, and women gain weight as symptoms of masculinization appear. At this time, insulin resistance also develops, leading to diabetes. If you use an insulin hormone improver and treat it, you will lose weight and your period will return. If you have hypothyroidism, you gain weight even though you have no appetite. As blood cholesterol levels rise, fat accumulates and is accompanied by swelling. There are symptoms of being dull and getting cold a lot. Only treatment that supplements thyroid hormones can help you lose weight and swelling. There is also an insulinoma among the diseases that cause weight gain. If there is a lump in the pancreas that secretes insulin, and insulin is secreted excessively, symptoms of hypoglycemia are repeated, resulting in repeated eating.
Kidney, heart, and liver diseases There are cases in which body fat is not accumulated, but edema occurs and weight increases. Edema occurs when body fluid leaks out of blood vessels and the amount of water between cells (interstitium) increases (interstitial fluid). It is one of the main symptoms that occur when there is a problem with kidney, heart, or liver function. However, there are not a few patients who mistake this for simply gaining weight. A representative disease is nephrotic syndrome. The pores of the ‘glomerulus’, which are capillaries, are enlarged, and a large amount of protein escapes and is excreted in the urine. Then, the concentration of albumin, a type of protein that maintains osmotic pressure in the blood vessels, decreases, resulting in edema. Edema also occurs when the blood pumping power is insufficient due to heart failure or when the concentration of albumin in the blood decreases due to cirrhosis of the liver. Edema due to heart failure usually appears in 안전놀이터the legs. There is a symptom (pitting edema) that does not come out when you press the shinbone area. This is a pattern that is not seen in the edema of hypothyroidism, an endocrine disease.
<Countermeasure> There are quite a few cases in which the disease is discovered simply by not losing weight and coming to the hospital. A simple blood and urine test can determine whether or not it is an internal medical disease. Even if you gain weight because of the disease, you can develop the disease by judging yourself and taking only diet pills. If you rely only on diet pills and try to lose weight recklessly, not only will there be no weight loss effect, but the diagnosis of the disease will be delayed, increasing the risk of complications.
Cushing’s syndrome can lead to diabetes and high blood pressure, hypothyroidism can lead to hypercholesterolemia, and polycystic ovary syndrome can lead to infertility. Weight gain due to illness can harm your health by not eating a healthy diet. For example, if a patient with nephrotic syndrome, in which a lot of protein is excreted in urine, eats only chicken breast and eggs and eats a high-protein diet that exceeds the appropriate amount, the kidneys become more strained.
〈TIP〉 Edema for no reason, eat a low-salt diet
and avoid excessive use of diuretics.
There is also swelling that is not a disease or drug problem. It is an idiopathic edema of unknown cause. Idiopathic edema mainly occurs in young women of reproductive age. Since it is not a disease, symptoms are often alleviated simply by correcting lifestyle habits such as using diuretics and eating a low-salt diet. Some patients with idiopathic edema arbitrarily overuse diuretics, which can be dangerous. Some patients arbitrarily take 10 or more diuretics at once, but the sodium concentration in the body drops sharply or dehydration occurs, so they are taken to the emergency room. Since diuretics do not fundamentally solve edema, the proper amount should be used according to the prescription.