Why are heart attacks and things of that nature more common in obese people?
In: Biology
Prolonged high blood sugar will lead to a metabolic anomaly called non enzymatic glycosylation, which is the sugar binding itself to proteins. This binding can happen anywhere but especially in the coronary arteries (in the heart). That will cause narrowing of the artery very similar to how atherosclerosis cause narrowing of the artery.
The pathogenesis of this disease is so in people with uncontrolled high blood sugars that it isn’t even known as a risk factor, but instead a risk equivalent.
Like I said this can happen in any artery, mainly eyes, kidneys, heart and even nerves.
Obesity results in deposits along the blood vessels restricting the flow of blood around the body causing many issues for organs when they are short of oxygenated blood however the organ that is most in need of oxygenated blood is the heart itself and can result in a heart attack.
Think of your heart like a car engine, now take that engine and put it in a big truck; the engine is going to have to work much harder. This is going to stress the entire engine and lead to failure.
The main cause of a heart attack, for example, is the clogging of the coronary arteries, which carry blood with oxygen to the muscle that makes the heart beat. And what clogs these arteries? One of the mechanisms is the deposition of fat in these arteries, creating a fatty plaque, which can break, activating clotting, creating a huge clot around the fatty plaque, ending up clogging the artery, preventing blood flow. If this happens in the coronary arteries, it will impede the flow of blood with oxygen to a part of the heart muscle, which starts to die. This is the heart attack. This process of forming fatty plaques and such is atherosclerosis.
Obesity means “excess fat”, which alters the metabolism and transport of fats, leaving the body prone to atherosclerosis in the vessels.
Eating too much bad foods will leave deposits of cholesterol in your arteries, causing blood pressure to raise and strain the heart to work harder for no benefit.
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