Obesity, Pancreatitis
Obesity Can Lead to an Attack of Pancreatitis
Obesity is not only tied to chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, researchers now say it's also linked to a painful condition known as acute pancreatitis.
Summary: 60 Second Read
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Overview
Pancreatitis is inflammation in the pancreas, a gland that is located in the upper abdomen. The pancreas produces enzymes that help digestion and hormones that help regulate the way your body processes sugar (glucose).
How Obesity and Pancreatitis are related?
Studies suggest that fat within the belly is rapidly degraded during acute [sudden-onset] pancreatitis, but not during diverticulitis [another condition that causes abdominal pain].
The catalyst for that degradation is an enzyme called PNLIP. It can spur creation of fatty acids, which can cause vital body systems- including circulation, kidney and lung function- to fail.
The increased belly fat found in obese people can worsen acute pancreatitis.
In addition, the researchers found that unsaturated fats, such as the oleic acid in olive oil also increases the risk of organ failure.(source)
These findings open the door to new therapeutic targets to treat pancreatitis and thereby prevent organ failure.
Role of obesity in initiating acute pancreatitis:
There are 4 ways where obesity can initiate damage to pancreas (source):
1. Increased cholelithiasis
Obesity & gallbladder stones are interlinked (hyperlink to our blog Obesity & Gallbladder Stones- How are they related?). Obesity delays the emptying of gallbladder, thus promotes gallbladder stone formations.
2. High levels of Triglycerides
Triglycerides, a type of lipid, is not only linked to obesity, but also to pancreatitis. High level of triglycerides in blood, travels through blood to blood vessels of pancreas and induces damage to pancreas. To add to this, the medicines used for lowering triglycerides (lipid lowering medicines) may also damage pancreas as a side effect.
3. Medicines used for Diabetes Treatment
Another way of damage to pancreas is linked to the medicines used for treatment of diabetes. Diabetes type 2 and obesity are very closely interrelated. Most of the diabetic people are overweight. The incretin based therapies used for diabetes treatment have shown to damage pancreas. This claim is inconsistent as few studies did not find a similar damaging effect on pancreas.
Diabetes is also associated with high levels of triglycerides. Thus, diabetes damages the pancreas through obesity and its impact on pancreas.
4. Side-effect of Weight loss treatment
Rarely, few of the Weight-Loss Surgeries like Gastric Bypass, Duodeno-Jejunal Bypass of Gastric Balloon may cause pancreatitis.
Bottomline
Obesity is a double edged sword atleast regarding its impact on pancreas. Apart from one of the emerging lead cause of pancreatitis, obesity plays a very negative role for recovery of pancreas. Rather, obesity helps to worsen the pancreas to turn into abscess or necrosis. The obesity induced damage is not limited to nearby organs like intestine or colon, it greatly affects the lung, heart and kidney.
Reference:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6640854/
- https://mayoclinic.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/obesity-and-pancreatitis
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28719397/
