How Losing Weight With GLP-1 Medications Can Improve Your Cardiovascular Health

The link between how much weight you carry and your cardiovascular health is strong. It’s also an all-too-common link. Obesity-related heart disease deaths in the United States have increased by an astounding 180% between 1999 and 2020.

Unfortunately, this issue applies to millions of Americans, especially if you consider that slightly more than 40% of adults are obese. Fortunately, we have a new weapon in the weight-loss arsenal, and it’s changing outcomes for the better.

At Upper East Side Cardiology, board-certified cardiologist Dr. Satjit Bhusri and the team recognized early on the important impact that GLP-1 weight-loss medications can have on managing cardiovascular disease risks. In fact, we’ve even set up a Wellness Center that’s devoted to helping patients lose weight and better manage their cardiometabolic health through GLP-1 medications. 

In the following, we look at the effect weight can have on your heart health and how GLP-1 medications are answering the call. 

Obesity and your cardiovascular health

Obesity can impact your cardiovascular health in direct and indirect ways.

As examples, obesity greatly raises your risks for conditions that set the stage for serious cardiovascular and heart disease, such as:

• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Diabetes
• Sleep apnea

Carrying too much weight can also have a more direct impact on your heart and blood vessel health. For starters, this system needs to work harder to move blood through your body. 

Secondly, excess weight, especially around your belly, is metabolically active and creates an inflammatory environment inside your body that can be problematic for your cardiovascular system.

By the numbers, the link between your weight and heart disease is revealing. For example, for every five-point increase in your BMI, your risk of heart failure can increase by 32%. 

Another example highlights that obesity can lead to heart disease in younger age groups — women under the age of 50 and men under the age of 65 with obesity for a decade or more have a 25% to 60% increase in risk for heart attack and stroke.

There are many more numbers we could present, but the reality remains the same — being obese is not healthy for your cardiovascular system.

How GLP-1 medications can improve your heart health

Now let’s go in a different direction and discuss why more cardiologists are using GLP-1 weight loss medications as frontline treatments to help patients improve their heart health.

This relatively new class of weight-loss medication is helping people lose weight in numbers we’ve never seen before, thanks to the way they work. GLP-1 medications work with certain hormones and systems in your body to:

• Help you feel full faster 
• Help you feel full for longer thanks to slower digestion
• Increase satiety
• Quiet your hunger pangs
• Reduce glucose levels in your blood

When you combine these actions, GLP-1 users shed pounds more easily as they aren’t struggling with that deprivation feeling most people get when they diet.

And this weight can come off fairly quickly, which is great news for your overworked cardiovascular system.

So, if you want to set yourself on a healthier cardiovascular path, we highly recommend coming to see us to explore how GLP-1 weight loss medications can pave the way forward.

To set that up, please contact our New York City office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Call our team at 212-752-3464 or request information online by clicking here.