A thousand overweight faces

“Obesity is increasing without us being able to stop it. It has become a real pandemic of the 21st century. Almost a third of the planet’s population is overweight,” warns Almudena García Carrasco, graduate in pharmacy and professor in the field of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid (URJC), Spain.

García Carrasco investigates different molecular mechanisms related to glucose and insulin, involved in obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome. She is the author of the book ‘Debljina. A silent pandemic’ in which more than twenty experts from different fields participate.

He explains that “we have a very simplistic view of it diseasewe stigmatize all obese people equally and mark them as people without will, opinion or speech, that they are a person a fat woman It’s because he wants to.'”

It is true that obesity It is a complex pathology in which different variables can intervene: genetic, economic, environmental or psychologicaland whose origin, evolution and consequences, medical approach and impact on society, represent little-known and often striking aspects.

García Carrasco reviews some of the most surprising aspects of this disease, which is conventionally defined as “an abnormal or excessive accumulation fat which can be harmful to health”, but which offers much more costs.

inflammatory disease

García Carrasco points out that obesity “inflammatory disease chronic that kills us.” Carrasco points out that in this approach “obesity is a excessive accumulation of fat in it bodybut it’s not only that.”

He explains that “each person’s adipose tissue has the capacity to store a certain amount of fat. When it reaches its maximum expansion limit, fatty tissue it begins to deteriorate and fats are stored in others fabricsAs liverhe kidney or pancreascausing many complications arising from obesity.

“In this whole process we can observe a inflammation characteristic, which is of a low degree, but constant, in the fat tissue of obese people, which represents one of complications it results from obesity and contributes to the worsening of the pathology,” explains the URJC researcher.

“Obesity creates a condition inflammation globally, which is thought to have already started in hoseand in which fat tissue is also capable of release pro-inflammatory molecules” he points out.

Apple and pear fat

García Carrasco explains that there are two basic types of obesity: central, android or “apple-shaped”; and peripheral, gynecoid‘cartucheras’ or “pear-shaped”.

The first type “is easy to recognize because it follows a pattern”beer belly‘, whose presence is associated with a higher cardiovascular risk and whose frequency is higher in men,” he points out.

Another type of obesity, which is located on the outside hips and the top thighsit is more common in women and its presence is anthropologically associated with the possibility of a pregnancybecause “we have to feed future generations well”, he assures.

Historical and pictorial

The overweight of “characters that were a part elites leaders in their societies, individuals who belonged to a group privilegeleads us to the conclusion that obesity and social position traditionally went hand in hand, creating a causal link between the two,” says García Carrasco. He points out that “historical images have left us a testimony of obese people with the political weight of societies, and an exhibition female figures which show that it is aesthetic beauty He liked round shapes, where cellulite folds “They were exhibited with all normality and exuberance”

Overweight and survival

“Your body feels the need to store calories, because it has learned that ‘you never know,'” says this researcher, referring to the fact that our body prefers to be prepared and have a supply of energy to face adversity or periods of scarcity. that could happen. arrive in the future.

To do this, our body “has white adipose tissue, which acts as a closet in which all nutrients are stored in the form of fat.” calorie that we are not used to moving. This fat not only acts as an energy reserve, but also serves as heat insulator and a mechanic“, says this scientist.

“What wealthy troglodytes we are, one of the main ones responsible factors energy imbalance (which leads to obesity), comes from our high intake very caloric foodswhich are usually the richest and give us the most pleasure, while reducing ours physical activity” he points out.

On the other hand, “our brain He learned that if danger lurks, we can’t stop eating and have to get out of there in a hurry. Therefore, it is concluded that if we eat, it is because we are safe,” he points out. Therefore, “it is normal that when our levels stress increase, many times we try to reduce them by eating. It’s our way of telling our brain to relax,” he points out.