Obesity and Endometriosis

Malaysia has been noted to have the most overweight and obese population among ASEAN countries. Not only in Malaysia, other countries too faced the same conundrum of obesity. Increasing affluence in the population, rapid urbanisation, an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and genetic aspects all influence obesity. Healthcare costs will increase because diseases such as diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension and heart-related diseases will rise directly in proportion to obesity rates. Obesity is a commonly found phenomenon among women of the reproductive age. Twenty-six percent of women have a body mass index (BMI) of more than 30 kg/m2 in United Kingdom. There is a preponderance of women by up to three times among admissions to hospitals with a primary diagnosis of obesity. Three times as many female patients seek bariatric surgery as men. The preponderance of the females (up to 70%) will be in the childbearing age. A quarter of women presenting for bariatric surgery suffered from infertility in one study. This book chapter explains whether obesity is linked to endometriosis.