Obesity and Hypertension, Cerebral Hemorrhage: From Cardiac Overload to Blood Vessel Rupture

5.1.3 Hypertension, Cerebral Hemorrhage and Vascular Infarction

In obese individuals, subcutaneous fat thickens, significantly dilating capillaries and increasing blood circulation. Under normal heart rate conditions, this leads to a substantial increase in cardiac output. Prolonged overload can induce left ventricular hypertrophy and elevated blood pressure.

Obesity is closely related to hypertension. Obese individuals are prone to hypertension, a condition that can manifest in childhood, with obese children sometimes experiencing blood pressure fluctuations. A moderately obese person is more than five times more likely to develop hypertension than an overweight person and more than twice as likely as a mildly obese person. Some reports also suggest that the balance between vasoconstrictors and vasodilators is disrupted in obese individuals, thus increasing the risk of hypertension tenfold.

The main reasons why obese people are prone to high blood pressure are as follows.

① Obese individuals have increased total blood volume, increased cardiac output, and increased blood volume pumped into the blood vessels per minute, which is an important reason why obese individuals are more prone to hypertension.

② Obese individuals often overeat, resulting in higher insulin levels in their blood compared to non-obese individuals. This overeating and hyperinsulinemia can stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, causing vasoconstriction and increasing peripheral vascular resistance, leading to elevated blood pressure. Hyperinsulinemia also increases sodium reabsorption by the kidneys, increasing blood volume and further raising blood pressure.

③ It is important to note that compared to hypertensive patients of normal weight, obese hypertensive patients are also more prone to dyslipidemia and diabetes. Furthermore, obese individuals tend to have less physical activity, significantly increasing their risk of developing arteriosclerosis. Hardened blood vessels are less likely to dilate with the influx of blood, leading to a further increase in blood pressure.

However, with weight loss, high blood pressure can be significantly reduced or even completely normalized. While lowering blood pressure, weight loss can also alleviate diabetes and dyslipidemia, and improve overall health, thus greatly reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. If weight loss still cannot lower blood pressure to normal, antihypertensive medication should be used to control it.

To outsiders, Youyou is a strong woman, managing a micro-business team of nearly 100,000 people. Long hours of demanding work and irregular eating habits resulted in her weighing 72.1 kg despite being only 163 cm tall, with a body fat percentage as high as 41.7%, along with high blood pressure and moderate fatty liver, causing frequent dizziness and headaches. After undergoing a weight loss program that adhered to low glycemic index, nutrient-rich diet, and negative energy balance standards, her weight dropped to 46.3 kg, her body fat percentage returned to normal at 21.3%, the dizziness and headaches caused by obesity disappeared, and her moderate fatty liver symptoms also improved.

Data before weight loss: Obesity level: extremely obese, weight 72.1kg, body fat percentage 41.7%, fat 30.0kg, visceral fat 17.0kg, protein 7.5kg, water 32.0kg, muscle 39.5kg, skeletal muscle 28.2kg, bone mass 2.5kg.

Post-weight loss data: Obesity level normal, weight 46.3kg, body fat percentage 21.3%, fat 9.9kg, visceral fat 4.0kg, protein 6.3kg, water 27.7kg, muscle 34.0kg, skeletal muscle 24.3kg, bone mass 2.5kg.

Note: This data comes from the Bianla APP.

Scientific weight loss can significantly improve symptoms caused by high blood pressure.

When blood pressure rises, the small arteries in the brain constrict. The higher the blood pressure, the more severe the vasoconstriction. Prolonged, sustained high blood pressure can cause the walls of these small arteries to harden. Hardened blood vessels can no longer contract significantly with changes in blood pressure. This is analogous to filling a rubber tube with water; with increased pressure, the tube expands, while filling a steel pipe with water, even with high pressure, will not expand. Long-term high blood pressure transforms the elastic "rubber tube" of blood vessels into an inelastic "steel pipe." As a result, when blood pressure drops, insufficient blood supply to the brain occurs, causing cerebral ischemia; conversely, when blood pressure rises, excessive blood flow to the vessels increases pressure on the vessel walls, which are not as strong as steel pipes, leading to rupture and bleeding. The most common symptoms of cerebral hemorrhage are coma, shallow and slow breathing, and varying degrees of paralysis. High intracranial pressure can cause severe headaches accompanied by projectile vomiting, and in severe cases, death can occur within hours.

Six major complications of hypertension, each one potentially fatal:

Arteriosclerosis: Sustained high blood pressure can lead to increased blood viscosity, causing arteriosclerosis, making blood vessels brittle and prone to rupture, resulting in diseases such as angina pectoris and myocardial infarction.

Stroke: Stroke is characterized by high incidence, high disability rate, and high mortality rate. According to statistics, there are 2 million stroke patients in my country every year, with an incidence rate as high as 120 per 100,000 people.

Heart disease: Long-term high blood pressure can lead to left ventricular failure, which is mainly manifested as fatigue, palpitations, shortness of breath, and in severe cases, it can induce emphysema and cyanosis of the lips, posing a risk of death at any time.

Kidney failure: High blood pressure leads to arteriosclerosis of the glomerular arterioles, causing kidney excretion dysfunction, water and electrolyte imbalance and acid-base imbalance, resulting in uremia.

Coronary heart disease: The probability of developing coronary heart disease is 2 to 4 times higher for patients with hypertension than for people with normal blood pressure. The longer the duration of hypertension, the higher the incidence of coronary heart disease. 50% of patients with long-term untreated hypertension die from coronary heart disease.

Diabetes: People with hypertension are three times more likely to develop diabetes than people with normal blood pressure. Many people with hypertension also have diabetes, which accelerates the development of diseases in the cardiovascular system, kidneys, nerves, retina and other parts of the body.

Elevated blood lipids or blood sugar levels increase blood viscosity, leading to the accumulation of impurities in blood vessels and reduced elasticity of blood vessel walls. Over time, this can cause slow blood flow in capillaries, or even lead to capillary blockage, resulting in conditions such as myocardial infarction or cerebral infarction.