Weight change is a fluctuation in body weight in the direction of decrease or increase. The condition may be accompanied by weakness, apathy, dyspeptic disorders. Weight changes are most often caused by conscious dietary restrictions, endocrine diseases, severe organic pathology and psychogenic disorders. To identify the cause of weight loss or weight gain, anthropometry is performed with the calculation of special indices, laboratory tests, and, if necessary, instrumental imaging methods are used: ultrasound of the abdominal organs, radiography, CT, MRI. Therapy consists in correcting the underlying disease.
Periodic weight changes of 2-3 kg without an obvious reason are observed in healthy people and are not a symptom of pathological conditions. In most cases, the weight increases slightly in the autumn-winter period, and then by the beginning of the warm season, the indicators return to the usual norm for a person. Such changes are not accompanied by unpleasant sensations, dyspeptic disorders. With a significant increase in weight, the patient does not “fit” into clothes, multiple fat folds appear, and the stomach sags. White or purple stretch marks appear on the skin.
With a sharp weight loss for no apparent reason, a person notices that the usual clothes become wide and hang on the body, the ribs and collarbones are very pronounced, the cheekbones sink, the eyes seem disproportionately large. The skin loses turgor and elasticity, flabby hanging skin folds are formed. Weight loss is accompanied by common symptoms: loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, dyspeptic disorders. A decrease or gain in weight by 5% or more from the initial values without a reason indicates the development of the disease and is the reason for a visit to the doctor.
The natural causes of weight changes are fluctuations in the calorie content and the qualitative composition of food entering the body. Weight loss develops with a long-term choice of a diet, the calorie content of which is below the level of basal metabolism. Obesity is observed with the abuse of simple carbohydrates and fats in combination with insufficient physical activity. Mass gain is provoked by the metabolic syndrome, in which the level of triglycerides and LDL increases in the blood, and lipogenesis (fat formation) increases. The condition is exacerbated by insulin resistance.
In hypothyroidism, upward weight changes are associated with inhibition of cleavage and excessive fat deposition. Weight loss up to exhaustion occurs in intestinal diseases with malabsorption syndrome, in which most of the nutrients are not absorbed in the small intestine and are excreted in the feces. The condition is accompanied by severe pain and dyspepsia, due to which patients lose their appetite. In malignant neoplasms, cachexia develops associated with massive intoxication of the body with the waste products of tumor cells.
Depending on the leading cause, there are natural weight changes that occur when playing sports and following a diet to lose weight or with a special high-calorie diet in athletes during the period of muscle growth, as well as pathological changes due to the development of disease states and metabolic changes. In clinical practice, the most common classification of weight fluctuations according to absolute numerical indicators, according to which there are:
A set of extra pounds or weight loss can be uniform, when the proportions of the body are not disturbed, and disharmonious, with characteristic excessive emaciation or obesity of certain parts of the body (for example, the accumulation of fat on the abdomen with relative weight loss of the arms and legs is a pathognomonic symptom of Itsenko-Cushing's disease). The reasons that caused weight changes are divided into organic, associated with diseases of the internal organs, and psychogenic, due to obsessive ideas of body imperfections and obesophobia - the fear of gaining weight.