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Excess Weight and Health: Risky Business

It’s important for women and men to understand that carrying extra pounds can affect their health. But the reality is that men and women often have very different attitudes about weight and health. While women are usually interested in and concerned about their health and preventing problems, men tend to be less concerned that is, until they experience a health problem. There’s research confirming that men’s interest in health appears to lag behind women’s. Weight Watchers studies have found that men are less likely than women to take vitamins, scan the media for health-related information, be concerned about their blood cholesterol level, see their doctor for an annual physical checkup, or believe that a positive mental outlook affects their health.

This lack of health awareness is unfortunate for guys, since being overweight puts everyone at increased risk for health problems.That’s because certain diseases don’t discriminate between the sexes. Four major weight-related problems that affect the health of both men and women are type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and infertility. Women can help guys reduce their risk of those problems by sharing information and helping them see the light the fact that losing weight will lower their health risks. Here’s an update on the four conditions, along with the many health benefits that weight loss has to offer women and men.

Type 2 Diabetes

The link between excess weight and type 2 diabetes is indisputable. Even if a person’s weight was normal from about age eighteen to twenty-two, adding weight as an adult translates into big risks for developing this life-threatening disease. In a study involving over 37,000 women, researchers found that BMI predicted which women were likely to develop diabetes. Compared with women at a healthy weight, the risk was three times greater for overweight women and nine times greater for obese women. A study that included middleaged men found that even a minimal weight gain of about 61⁄2 pounds per decade produced more than a sevenfold increase in the risk of developing diabetes.

The take-home message for men and women, though, is positive. Although small weight gains increase the risk for type 2 diabetes, it takes only a small weight loss to reduce the risk. In a study involving about 7,000 British men, a mere 4 percent loss in body weight significantly reduced the risk for developing diabetes. So for a man who weighs 250 pounds, getting down to 240 pounds can result in a substantial health gain.

A study involving over 100,00 women between the ages of thirty and fifty-five found that compared with women whose weight remained stable during adulthood,women who gained 11 to 17 pounds after age eighteen had twice the risk of developing diabetes; women who gained 18 to 24 pounds tripled their risk. In contrast, women who lost 11 or more pounds reduced their risk of developing diabetes by at least 50 percent.

Heart Disease

As we saw earlier, since guys are more likely to accumulate extra pounds around the belly, middle-aged men are at a higher risk of developing heart disease than are premenopausal women. But according to the American Heart Association, coronary heart disease (CHD) is the single greatest cause of death for women as well as men. In a study that included almost 90,000 women between the ages of thirtyfour and fifty-nine, being overweight or obese was associated with a significantly increased risk of CHD.A gain of even 9 to 22 pounds during adulthood was associated with a 27 percent increased risk of CHD when compared with women whose weight had remained stable. Once again, studies have found that small weight losses lead to big improvements in cardiovascular risk factors. Researchers estimate that for every kilogram of weight lost that’s 2.2 pounds total blood cholesterol is lowered by 1 percent, LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) is lowered by 0.7 percent, and HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) is increased by 0.2 percent.

Hypertension

High blood pressure affects millions of men and women in America. Several studies have confirmed that losing a modest amount of weight 5 to 10 percent of one’s original weight can lower blood pressure in both hypertensive and nonhypertensive individuals. For somebody weighing 200 pounds, that means losing between 10 and 20 pounds. In fact, in some cases losing weight normalizes blood pressure among those who have been diagnosed with high blood pressure. And for those taking medications to lower their blood pressure, losing weight often enables them to lower their dosage or go off the pills completely.

Infertility

Although women and men obviously have different reproductive systems, being overweight or obese can affect fertility for both genders. Several studies have found that losing weight can help restore fertility and seems to improve everyone’s love life. For women, being overweight can play havoc with the reproductive hormones. Those imbalances can affect menstrual cycles and may lead to infertility. Obesity has also been connected to women having a poorer response and weaker absorption of fertility drugs.

However, weight loss has been shown to improve fertility rates in women, particularly obese women. In one Australian study, researchers put sixty-seven obese infertile women on a lifestyle-based weight-loss program for 6 months.The goal of the study was to determine whether the women could achieve a viable pregnancy, ideally without medication. The results were amazing. Women in the study lost an average of 22 pounds; sixty of the sixty-seven women whose ovaries were not releasing eggs at the start of the study resumed spontaneous ovulation; fifty-two of the women became pregnant (eighteen spontaneously), and forty-five women gave birth. The miscarriage rate was 18 percent, compared with 75 percent for the same women prior to the weight-loss program. Obesity can affect men’s fertility as well.

A study of 520 men found that as BMI increased from a healthy level to levels indicating that the men were overweight or obese, the sperm count and semen quality decreased. In addition, several of the lifestyle factors that contribute to heart disease are linked to an increased risk of erectile dysfunction (ED). Smoking, being overweight, and avoiding exercise are all possible causes for ED. Conversely, losing weight seems to help obese men reduce their episodes of ED.One study divided into two groups 110 obese men between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five who did not have diabetes, hypertension, or high blood fat levels but did have ED.The first group underwent an intensive lifestyle-based weight-loss program, while the control group received general information about diet and exercise.

The men in the weight-loss program lost more weight and improved their blood pressure and cholesterol. In addition, about one-third (31 percent) of the men in that group had restored sexual function, compared with only 3 percent in the control group. Losing weight can definitely help men and women prevent such health problems as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and infertility. The exciting news is that both sexes can reap big health benefits by losing relatively small amounts of weight sometimes as little as 10 pounds.