Carrying too much weight on your frame can have a detrimental impact on your cardiovascular health in many different ways.
It Increases Your Risk of Developing Diseases That Harm the Heart
The list of health conditions that can harm your ticker include hypertension, cholesterol abnormalities, and type 2 diabetes, notes Nieca Goldberg, MD, a cardiologist and clinical associate professor of medicine at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. Being overweight also increases your risk of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of heart-disease risk factors, including high blood pressure, low levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol, high triglyceride levels, high blood sugar levels, and a large waist circumference (35 inches or more for women, 40 inches or more for men).
Making matters worse, high blood pressure that’s brought on by obesity irritates plaque in the arteries and predisposes it to rupturing, which is what triggers a heart attack, adds Tracy Stevens, MD, a cardiologist and the medical director of the Saint Luke’s Muriel I. Kauffman Women’s Heart Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
It Ups Your Odds of Developing Sleep Apnea
It Can Cause Chronic Low-Grade Inflammation
“Obesity also releases substances in the blood that can make plaque rupture, which is what leads to heart attacks,” Dr. Stevens explains. “Obesity is like broken glass to our arteries.”
It Can Cause an Irregular Heartbeat
It Forces Your Heart to Work Harder
Yes, the extra weight you’re carrying does put the heart under increased stress, in particular during the relaxation phase of the cardiac cycle — what’s called the diastole. As the heart fills with blood, there’s higher pressure, Goldberg explains. “Over time, that can cause people to have heart failure symptoms.”
It’s not just the number on the scale that matters. Where the extra weight is distributed also affects your risk of developing heart disease. Simply put, greater amounts of belly fat — what’s often called central or abdominal obesity — is associated with greater inflammation, which is damaging to your heart, Goldberg says. Excess belly fat also increases triglyceride levels, which can contribute to plaque rupturing, Stevens notes. That’s why your waist measurement really does matter, in addition to your overall weight.
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