Cachexia is a condition that causes extreme weight loss and muscle wasting. It is a symptom of many chronic conditions such as cancer, chronic renal failure, HIV, and multiple sclerosis. Cachexia predominantly affects people in the late stages of serious diseases like cancer, HIV or AIDS, and congestive heart failure.
People who are underweight typically are not getting enough calories to fuel their bodies. Often, they are also suffering from malnutrition. Malnutrition means you are not taking in enough vitamins and minerals from your food.
Medical conditions
Diseases associated with weight gain, obesity and inability to lose weight include hypothyroidism, polycystic ovary syndrome and Cushing's syndrome. Untreated hypothyroidism slows the metabolism, which makes it tough to lose weight.
Many overweight people have built up resistance to a hormone called leptin. Fat cells in your body make leptin, and leptin tells your body when you have enough stores of fat, decreasing your appetite.
When you space out your meals too much, your metabolism slows down and isn't able to burn off all the calories you eat in your next meal. Those extra calories may wind up as extra weight. And you may overeat because you're too hungry. Try eating smaller portions, and eat more often.
While clearly difficult, weight loss is not impossible. It's important to focus on the small successes (eating more vegetables, walking more). It can also help to work backward and pinpoint those factors that are standing in your way or causing a plateau.
A high metabolism means a person burns more calories at rest and during activity. Therefore, there is no piling up of fats or weight gain. A very high metabolism rate can be unhealthy as the person is unable to maintain a healthy weight.
The reason why many people living with Marfan syndrome cannot gain weight isn't fully understood. It may have something to do with the underdeveloped muscles that are associated with Marfan syndrome.
Your slower metabolism will slow your weight loss, even if you eat the same number of calories that helped you lose weight. When the calories you burn equal the calories you eat, you reach a plateau. To lose more weight, you need to either increase your physical activity or decrease the calories you eat.
Lipoedema: the chronic condition that could be the reason you can't lose weight. Diet and exercise won't make a difference.
mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) problems with digestion, such as coeliac disease or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) other health conditions, such as an overactive thyroid, type 2 diabetes or heart failure.
Cachexia is a condition that causes extreme weight loss and muscle wasting. It is a symptom of many chronic conditions such as cancer, chronic renal failure, HIV, and multiple sclerosis. Cachexia predominantly affects people in the late stages of serious diseases like cancer, HIV or AIDS, and congestive heart failure.
“Thinness is a heritable trait”
So thin people not only stay slim “by not having the obesity genes, but they also have different genes that protect them” from gaining weight, she said. The research concludes that “thinness, like obesity, is a heritable trait.”
It's not just how active they are or their gut bacteria – some people actually have different genetic coding that helps them stay the same weight for life. The rest of us might need a little extra help.
What Is Loeys-Dietz Syndrome? Loeys-Dietz syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects connective tissue. Connective tissue protects, supports and gives structure to all other tissues and organs in the body. Most people with Loeys-Dietz syndrome inherit it, meaning it is passed down from parent to child.
Most people with Marfan syndrome have nearsightedness, or myopia, and an extra curved shape of the eye, or astigmatism.
Congenital generalized lipodystrophy (also called Berardinelli-Seip congenital lipodystrophy) is a rare condition characterized by an almost total lack of fatty (adipose) tissue in the body and a very muscular appearance.
Genes and behavior may both be needed for a person to be overweight. In some cases, multiple genes may increase one's susceptibility for obesity and require outside factors such as abundant food supply or little physical activity. For more information, visit Obesity and Genetics: A Public Health Perspective.
Rapid metabolism
Some people have trouble gaining weight because their metabolism burns food too rapidly. Such people need to ensure that their calorie intake throughout the day is higher than the amount of calories they burn.
(Men and women tend to put on little or no weight after age 40 and lose weight in their 70s, according to HHS.) For a variety of reasons, it's tougher for men and women to drop pounds as they transition from young adulthood into middle age than it is to shed weight during young adulthood, experts say.
People whose body type interferes with their goals.
It really is harder for an endomorph to lose weight, for example, than an ectomorph. Conversely, it's also more difficult for an ectomorph to put on muscle than it is for an endomorph.
Muscle is denser than fat.
While one pound of fat weighs the same as one pound of muscle, muscle occupies about 18 percent less space. In addition, muscle burns calories while fat stores them. So, if your weight isn't decreasing but your clothes are starting to fit more loosely, you may be building muscle.
You're not eating enough calories.
If you're not over eating, you could have the opposite problem – eating too few calories! When you eat almost entirely nutrient-dense foods, (especially if you eat salad a lot, or lots of fruits and veggies and not a lot of protein) the calorie intake doesn't add up quickly.