Does Extra Weight Affect Heart Surgery?

Heart surgery becomes all the more important and inevitable in some cases wherein there are extreme complications with the normal functions of the heart. Of course, numbers of things need to be considered when it comes to going ahead with heart surgery so that the desired outcomes may be achieved in a safe manner without causing any hazardous effects on the overall health of the patients. In this respect, the weight of the patient is a matter of great concern. As per the expert cardiologists working at a heartclinic,extra weight adversely affects heart surgery in numbers of ways as discussed below:-

Problems in giving anaesthesia to the patients

Extra body weight certainly creates problems in offering anaesthesia to the patients. It is an evident fact that the patients undergoing heart surgery need to be administered with anaesthesia. However, patients who are overweight experience great problems in getting anaesthesia administered to them.

Delayed recovery following surgery

As per Essex Heart Clinic, the patients who are obese or overweight also experience problems in getting totally recovered following the surgery. The recovery may be delayed in such patients due to the slow rate of physiological changes taking place in the body.

Risk due to high blood pressure

For heart patients, it is very much important that the patient must have normal blood pressure otherwise there is greater chance of damage to other vital organs of the body. Also it becomes all the more difficult to perform surgery on such patients that have high blood pressure. And it is a common problem for people that have high body weight. Thus extra body weight may create complications in performance of the surgery.

High blood cholesterol intervenes with surgery

Again high blood cholesterol is a common problem that is commonly found in obese or overweight people. High fat content present in the blood starts depositing in the heart arteries due to which there may be problems in performing heart surgery on such patients. Also the patients may experience problems in getting rid of the symptoms following surgery.

Problems in normal breathing during surgery

Obese people find it difficult to breathe normally. It is all due to the presence of excess fat content in the body that obstructs the normal flow of blood through the arteries and veins. Lesser supply of oxygen to the heart leads to problems in breathing. Thus there are problems during and after the surgery as well.

After reading all this, it is quite clear that extra body weight or obesity definitely affects the heart surgery in an adverse manner. Hence it is advised to reduce weight and maintain healthy body weight so that chances of any complications during and after the surgery may be ruled out.