Weight and Heart Health

Heart Attacks (cardiovascular disease) and Heart Failure are more likely to occur the heavier your body becomes. Increased body weight can have a negative effect on your heart’s health. This includes heart attacks, heart failure, stroke, and sudden death. Heart disease causes more deaths per year in the United States than the COVID-19 pandemic.

Metabolic Effects

Fat cells make adipokines–(cell signaling proteins). As we store more fat, especially around the abdomen, more adipokines are secreted and many of them are toxic to our health. These adipokines cause negative effects on your blood sugar metabolism and your blood pressure. They increase inflammatory molecules in your entire body. Inflammation leads to joint destruction, cancers, and damage to blood vessels throughout your body INCLUDING your heart.
Increased weight may cause us to develop type two diabetes. People with type two diabetes have double the risk of having a heart attack as a nondiabetic.
Any person with type two diabetes, high blood pressure, increased waist circumference, high triglycerides, and low HDL has metabolic syndrome. Metabolic Syndrome is known to increase our risk for heart attacks and strokes. However, Metabolic Syndrome has NO symptoms, so most people do not even know they have it.

Physical and Mechanical Effects

As weight increases, the body develops problems breathing when we are sleeping–Sleep Apnea. Sleep apnea harms our blood vessels and leads to high blood pressure, heart attack, and heart failure. Lastly, some people develop fat around their heart (pericardial fat) and this doubles their risk to develop Heart Failure.