Long Term Health Effects of Teenage Problems

Long-term health effects of Teenage Obesity
Teenage obesity has both immediate and long-term effects on health and well-being.
Immediate health effects:

• Obese youth are more likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. In a population-based sample of 5- to 17-year-olds, 70% of obese youth had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
• Obese adolescents are more likely to have prediabetes, a condition in which blood glucose levels indicate a high risk for development of diabetes.
• Children and adolescents who are obese are at greater risk for bone and joint problems, sleep apnea, and social and psychological problems such as stigmatization and poor self-esteem.
Long-term health effects:
• Children and adolescents who are obese are likely to be obese as adults and are therefore more at risk for adult health problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. One study showed that children who became obese as early as age 2 were more likely to be obese as adults.
• Overweight and obesity are associated with increased risk for many types of cancer, including cancer of the breast, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, pancreas, gall bladder, thyroid, ovary, cervix, and prostate, as well as multiple myeloma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Teenage Bone Health

The peak bone-making years for girls are in childhood and teen years. If they do not make enough bone as a kid, their future risk for a bone disease called osteoporosis goes up.

Osteoporosis is a disease that thins and weakens bones to the point where they break easily. Hip, spine (backbone) and wrist bones are often involved. It is called a "silent disease" because bone loss happens without much notice.

Having good eating and exercise habits now will help you to have strong, healthy bones throughout your life. A poor diet and not enough physical activity as a teen can cause you to have weaker bones as an adult. This not only makes it easier to get osteoporosis, it can hurt the body's ability to heal right after an injury. Getting enough calcium and vitamin D and doing enough of the right type of physical activity (called "bone-strengthening activity") can help protect your bones. Calcium helps bones to grow right. When the body makes new bone tissue, it first lays down a framework of a protein called collagen. Then, calcium from the blood spreads throughout the collagen framework. The hard crystals of calcium attach to the bone structure. Calcium and collagen work together to make bones both strong and flexible. Vitamin D helps the body use calcium. Your bones can’t do their job without vitamin D. Lots of foods have calcium, but vitamin D can be harder to find. You can get what you need for the day by drinking two glasses of fortified milk, and some cereals and yogurts are fortified with vitamin D as well.Bone-strengthening activity is any activity that produces a force on the bones and promotes bone growth and strength. Examples of bone-strengthening activities that you can do include walking, running and tennis. Smoking, drinking alcohol, and having eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia can cause weaker bones. Research suggests that teen girls who drink a lot of cola drinks, have more bone fractures (breaks).

Long-term health risks of PCOS
Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is the commonest endocrinopathy among women of reproductive age with an estimated prevalence of about 10%. It is becoming more and more obvious that due to the complexity of the syndrome, a number of metabolic and other implications of womens health will have to be confronted in the near future.

Obesity
It is well known that obesity is observed in about 60% of women with PCOS. The central distribution of fat though is not dependent to BMI and actually is associated with higher insulin concentrations.

Diabetes:
The key underlying abnormality that leads to later development of impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes in women with PCOS appears to be insulin resistance. . Insulin resistance combined with abdominal obesity is thought to account for the higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes in PCOS .Approximately, 25% to 30% of women with PCOS will show impaired glucose tolerance by the age of 30 and 8% of affected women will develop type 2 diabetes annually. Evidence demonstrates that the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in women diagnosed with PCOS is 7 times higher. There is a concomitant increased risk of gestational diabetes to these women.

Cardiovascular Disease (Heart Disease and myocardial infarction):
Hyperinsulinemia appears to be the main reason for the increased cardiovascular risk of women with PCOS. There are two mechanisms by which insulin resistance in PCOS contributes significantly to higher incidence of cardiovascular disease in these women. One mechanism is the direct atherogenic (thickening of coronary blood vessels by direct fat deposition) action and the other mechanism is the adverse affect of the lipoprotein profile. The lipoprotein profile in women with polycystic ovaries is significantly distorted. They usually have high concentrations of serum triglycerides and total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes caused by PCOS are known risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The evidence is thus mounting that there is indeed an increased risk for women with PCOS of developing cardiovascular disease.

Hypertension:
Regarding hypertension there seems to be a direct relationship between insulin plasma levels and blood pressure. The prevalence of hypertension is three times higher in women with PCOS between the age of 40-59 years in comparison with controls. The incidence of preeclampsia in obese women with PCOS conceiving compared to the general pregnant population is 4 times higher.

Endometrial Cancer:
The known factors which increase the risk of developing endometrial cancer are obesity, long-term use of unopposed oestrogens, nulliparity, infertility, hypertension and diabetes. Most of these factors are known also to be associated with PCOS.