A BBC documentary has revealed the full effects of obesity on the human body. The body used in the documentary is that of a woman from Long Beach, California weighing 108kg and standing just 5ft5inches tall in her early 60s who died of heart failure and donated her body to medical science.
Cameras watched on as pathologists sliced and diced the woman to examine her skin, heart, liver, lungs and kidneys. Her left arm was removed for cremation and the ashes sent to her family while the rest of body was sent to medical staff for analysis.
As the team began the post mortem they noted a thick layer of greasy fat that 'felt like butter with a mesh going through it' that was mainly distributed around the belly.
'I needed a lot more strength to cut through the tissue which kind of bloomed out in neon yellow,' said Carla Valentine, technical curator of the museum of pathology at Queen Mary University.
'It made me aware of the fat on my own body and the effect it has.'
Pathologist, Giles Yeo, noted that although some fat is healthy for the body when the 'extra fat looks for somewhere else to go and that is where the damage is caused.'
'The amount of fat you can see tells you how likely the fat is to be doing damage elsewhere.'
The team extracted the heart and liver which bore the brunt of the woman's obesity.
Pathologist Dr Mike Osborn said:
'The heart feels baggy, when you pick up the heart of someone fit it would be tight and hard like picking up a piece of steak, this is like more like a bag. At 449 grams, it's a heavy heart, despite her weight this woman is quite a petite person and should have a heart of 225 grams so this is much heavier.'
'This is sort of heart you would expect in someone who has heart failure due to high blood pressure'
'This heart has gone from a thick muscle to a paper bag that is not able to pump blood around the body,' he added.
'The first thing I saw in the liver marked 'fatty change,' Osborn said.
'It was pinky, soft, like pate. A normal liver is quite soft but not as soft and is much more meaty - the pink in this liver is the fat.'
'The most common cause is alcohol related but we know this lady drank virtually nothing so it's almost certainly obesity.'
'Fatty damage can lead to cirrhosis and cancer but even people who do not develop those can have liver failure.'
The pathologists said the lungs were dripping with fluid which is a sign of pulmonary edema caused by heart failure.
'This would have given a sensation of drowning,' Osborn said.
'People with this condition tend to need support for example if someone tells you they have to sleep sitting up or with eight pillows that is very indicative of heart failure.'
'Heart failure is different to a heart attack, when it fails it doesn't fail straight away, it fails over time so symptoms are gradual.'
'This lady might have been able to walk up 10 flights of stairs three years ago then only five flights and then struggle up one flight of stairs, it was a progressive disease as the heart became worse and worse,' Osborn continued.
Yeo said: 'If you are not getting enough oxygen in you are going struggle to breathe and get out of breath.
The kidneys also had the scars of obesity.
'You should be able to see the kidneys and they should have a little bit of fat around them like an edamame bean that you pop out but these had very large fat capsules and lots of extra fat,' said Carla.
Yeo said that obesity can lead to diabetes which can cause kidney failure as the organ can become overworked.
'The kidney is another detoxifying organ and it filters your urine,' he said in the BBC documentary.
'If you are obese some fat will end up in your kidneys and they will have to work harder.'
BBC said in a statement that the woman knew her body may be used 'for research, and educational use, including being filmed anonymously for scientific presentation.'
EmoticonEmoticon