Weight Loss: Causes
A weight loss may be due to several causes. Generally, weight loss is related to low food intake, special diets, doing exercise or stress.
Weight loss is usually harmless and is solved by changing the daily and eating habits. However, behind a unwanted weight loss without apparent cause can hide a disease, and in this case it is important to see a doctor.
The extreme hunger in people with eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa, but sometimes also in bulimia nervosa, leads to weight loss that may endanger life undergo. In other mental illnesses such as depression, weight changes also occur because patients have lost the "desire to eat" or deliberately want to hurt.
Diseases that can cause rapid weight loss are, among others, the following:
Stomach and intestinal infections and diseases that cause diarrhea
Parasitic infections in the gut (for example, Taenia saginata worm or fish)
Chronic inflammatory bowel disease (eg Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis)
Malabsorption syndrome (insufficient absorption of ingested food, for example, celiac disease)
Allergies or food intolerance (eg lactose intolerance)
Cancer (eg, lung and bowel cancer)
Chronic infections (eg, AIDS)
Inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis)
hyperthyroidism
diabetes mellitus
Addison's disease (disease of the adrenal cortex)
diabetes insipidus
Drug abuse (eg, alcohol, nicotine, heroin)
Medications (eg, cardiotonic digitalis or certain asthma medications)
A weight loss may be due to several causes. Generally, weight loss is related to low food intake, special diets, doing exercise or stress.
Weight loss is usually harmless and is solved by changing the daily and eating habits. However, behind a unwanted weight loss without apparent cause can hide a disease, and in this case it is important to see a doctor.
The extreme hunger in people with eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa, but sometimes also in bulimia nervosa, leads to weight loss that may endanger life undergo. In other mental illnesses such as depression, weight changes also occur because patients have lost the "desire to eat" or deliberately want to hurt.
Diseases that can cause rapid weight loss are, among others, the following:
Stomach and intestinal infections and diseases that cause diarrhea
Parasitic infections in the gut (for example, Taenia saginata worm or fish)
Chronic inflammatory bowel disease (eg Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis)
Malabsorption syndrome (insufficient absorption of ingested food, for example, celiac disease)
Allergies or food intolerance (eg lactose intolerance)
Cancer (eg, lung and bowel cancer)
Chronic infections (eg, AIDS)
Inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis)
hyperthyroidism
diabetes mellitus
Addison's disease (disease of the adrenal cortex)
diabetes insipidus
Drug abuse (eg, alcohol, nicotine, heroin)
Medications (eg, cardiotonic digitalis or certain asthma medications)