Obese People And The New Leptin Risk
A lot of obese people think they’re healthy if they don’t have high cholesterol or diabetes. After all, what’s the problem with extra pounds if everything else checks out okay?
Turns out there’s a big problem and here’s what it is…
Obesity raises your leptin levels which can then cause a domino effect of bad biochemical changes in your body.
Leptin is a hormone that’s produced by fat cells. Normally, it just helps to regulate your weight by working with your brain to burn stored fat and suppress your appetite.
But if you’re obese, you’re probably producing too much leptin.
This can reduce your levels of nitric oxide, which is used by your body to keep your heart healthy. Nitric oxide causes your blood vessels to relax and helps to maintain a good blood flow.
There’s another problem with greater than normal levels of leptin.
It turns out that your body will produce more superoxide, too. Together with nitric oxide, this produces the very toxic peroxynitrite…
And you’re thinking huh?
Well, that’s what I thought, too, at first. Then I kept reading about the new research from Ohio University and realized that peroxynitrite can damage cells in your vascular system and cause problems with your DNA.
Obviously, that’s not good.
So if you’re obese but otherwise seem to be healthy, remember this. Just the increased leptin in your body from being overweight can cause heart damage, even heart failure, over the longer term.
In fact, it may be just as dangerous to your heart as having high blood pressure, diabetes, or arthrosclerosis.
So now this new risk from leptin may be one more reason to lose weight if you’re obese.
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