Recurring emotional stress may trigger a stronger biochemical response in overweight people, possibly increasing their risk of chronic illnesses such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that overweight people repeatedly placed in a stressful situation exhibited increasing amounts of interleukin-6, a protein that promotes inflammation in the body, in their blood. Normal weight people did not exhibit this escalation in interleukin-6 levels when exposed to repeated stress.
The inflammation caused by interleukin-6 has been associated with a number of conditions for which obesity itself creates an increased risk, including hardening of the arteries, type 2 diabetes, cancer and fatty liver disease, the researchers said.
[For more of this story, written by Dennis Thompson, go to http://consumer.healthday.com/...suggests-692124.html]
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