Hypothyroidism. If your thyroid (the butterfly-shaped gland in the front of your neck) is not making enough thyroid hormone, you're probably feeling tired, weak, and cold, and gaining weight. Without enough thyroid hormone, your metabolism slows, making weight gain more likely.
Common signs of an underactive thyroid are tiredness, weight gain and feeling depressed. An underactive thyroid can often be successfully treated by taking daily hormone tablets to replace the hormones your thyroid is not making. There's no way of preventing an underactive thyroid.
In some people, obesity can be traced to a medical cause, such as Prader-Willi syndrome, Cushing syndrome and other conditions. Medical problems, such as arthritis, also can lead to decreased activity, which may result in weight gain.
Thyroid disorders
When your immune system messes with your thyroid, it can cause unexplained weight changes. Your thyroid helps control your metabolism, so if it's underactive (hypothyroidism), everything slows down. That's why common symptoms include weight gain, fatigue, constipation, hair loss, and depression.
I'd say that breast cancer patients are the majority of patients who come to us for help with weight gain. Weight gain is also extremely common among patients with prostate cancer, as well as lymphoma, multiple myeloma and chronic leukemia.
Your Slow Metabolism:
When you have a slow metabolism, your body doesn't convert food into energy in sufficient quantities. So most of the food you eat is stored in the form of fats. This is the main reason why some people get fat even though they don't eat much.
Thyroid. An overactive or underactive thyroid can often be the underlying cause of fatigue, particularly in women. This hormone controls your body's metabolic rate i.e. how food is converted to energy.
Cortisol is often called the “stress hormone” because it is responsible for modulating the body's stress response, both long term and on a daily basis. When the body is not functioning as it should, cortisol can spike at the wrong time, causing sleep difficulty which leads to fatigue.
CFS sufferers can gain weight as a result of being unable to exercise due to exhaustion, muscle pain or other symptoms. Some sufferers will lose weight. They may have lost their appetite, feel nauseous or lack the energy to buy and prepare meals.
This may be due to menstruation, heart or kidney failure, preeclampsia, or medicines you take. A rapid weight gain may be a sign of dangerous fluid retention. If you quit smoking, you might gain weight. Most people who quit smoking gain 4 to 10 pounds (2 to 4.5 kilograms) in the first 6 months after quitting.
Heart failure means that the heart isn't working as well as it should. One effect of this can be extra fluid in your body. This can cause rapid weight gain and can cause swelling in the ankles, feet or legs, or sometimes around the stomach.
If you eat too much and exercise too little, you're likely to carry excess weight — including belly fat. Also, your muscle mass might diminish slightly with age, while fat increases.
Fat-burning ingredients like protein, spicy peppers and green tea have been proven to bump up metabolism. Eat some form of these foods, especially protein, at every meal. Protein is especially important: It takes more calories to digest than other foods and also helps the body build fat-burning lean muscle tissue.
This condition is called hypothyroidism. That means your body won't burn calories as quickly as it should. Slowly, over time, your underactive thyroid will lead to weight gain — anywhere from 10 to 30 pounds or more. Most of the extra weight is due to water and salt.
Most women with ovarian cancer have vague symptoms. These signs often are like less serious conditions including indigestion, weight gain or aging.
Symptoms of ovarian cancer include abdominal swelling and bloating, both of which people may link to weight gain. Also, some people with ovarian cancer may experience weight gain due to treatment or just living with the disease.
Cancer can sometimes cause swelling of the tummy (abdomen) due to a build up of fluid. The medical name for a build up of fluid in the abdomen is ascites (pronounced ay-site-eez). A swollen tummy can be very uncomfortable but a doctor can drain the fluid to make you more comfortable.
Half of people with lupus also have kidney problems, called lupus nephritis. Symptoms include weight gain, swollen ankles, high blood pressure, and decreased kidney function.
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.
However, in chronic illness and autoimmune diseases, the inflammation stays in your body for an extended period. It begins to cause damage to your blood vessels, organs, and other systems in the body. And inflammation also impacts weight gain, as it can interfere with the hormone leptin.