Ominivore's Dilemma Book - Essay Example

Obesity is not an independent risk factor for diabetes: Though obesity may be blamed by many for leading people towards many complicated heart and vascular diseases, I think that obesity should not be considered as an independent risk factor every time. Many times, we fail to reach a reality-based conclusion when not thinking from a multidimensional approach but relying excessively on conventional wisdom. Thinking in an innovative manner should always be encouraged because orthodox way of handling different issues and challenges never yields much good.

In this paper, discussion is presented to support the claim that it is actually the combination of obesity and myriad other health problems which accompany obesity like hypertension, fatigue, and decreased physical activity, which lead to the development of full blown cardiovascular complications. In response to the alarming rate by which morbid and moderate obesity is seen increasing in surgery patients, research was carried out recently by Park et al. (2011) to assess the impact of obesity on specific perioperative outcomes like myocardial infarctions and long-term outcomes like renal dysfunction.

The theme of this research is that though obesity plays a major role in independently raising risk factor for diseases like coronary artery disease (CAD), secondary hypertension, and diabetes mellitus, still it should not be thought of as an independent risk factor for adverse perioperative and long-term clinical results following surgeries like aneurysm repair. Many conventional thinking based articles and talkshow hosts blame obesity to be independently related to not just some specific diseases but almost all major clinical complications.

Though this leads people to adopt precautionary measures against obesity, but such an action comes at cost of development of a great confusion in society. People have a right to know that obesity does not play the role of an independent risk factor for every disease every time. Diaz et al. (2009) also claim that morbid obesity never turns up as an independent risk factor for mortality in seriously ill trauma patients. The research conducted by Diaz et al. (2009) on trauma patients was to assess all the risk factors which posed highest risk for death.

Among all such risk factors, obesity got out ruled for independently being capable enough to cause death in trauma patients. Whether obesity be seen as a primary cause of a disease or simply as an aggravating factor, fact is that even cardiovascular diseases develop due to certain excess morbidity associated with obesity like lack of exercise (Behan and Cox, 2010). Still, severe obesity should not be taken lightly as it is repeatedly suggested to be an important risk factor for significantly increasing all-cause mortality, whether independently or not.

Summing up, this much remains clear from the above discussion that obesity, particularly if fat distribution is pretty prominent around the waist, is considered a resolutely important risk factor for some specific diseases like CAD, hypertension, and diabetes, at large. Majority of the conventional research done supports obesity to be an independent risk factor. Still, this issue should be assessed with an unconventional approach so that new results could be introduced indicating obesity to not be seen as an independent risk factor for every disease.

References:Behan, D.F. and Cox, S.H. (2010). Obesity and its Relation to Mortalityand Morbidity Costs. Retrieved from http://www.soa.org/files/pdf/research-2011-obesity-relation-mortality.pdfDiaz, J.J., Norris, P.R., Collier, B.R., Berkes, M.B., Ozdas, A., May, A.K., Miller, R.S., Morris, J.A. (2009). Morbid obesity is not a risk factor for mortality in critically ill trauma patients. The Journal of Trauma, 66(1), 226-31.Park, B., Dragon, P., Binette, C., Babic, B., Thomas, T., Divinagracia, T., Dahn, M.S.

, and Menzoian, J.O. (2011). Obesity is not an independent risk factor for adverse perioperative and long-term clinical outcomes following open AAA repair or EVAR. Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, 45(7), 607-13.