The term excess weight should be replaced with excess fat tissue in human body


Mehmet Rami Helvaci1, Elif Helvaci2, Emine Helvaci2, Yusuf Aydin1, Leyla Yilmaz Aydin3, Alper Sevinc1, Celaletdin Camci1, Abdulrazak Abyad4, Lesley Pocock5

1 Specialist of Internal Medicine, MD, Turkey
2 Manager of Writing and Statistics, Turkey
3 Specialist of Pulmonary Medicine, MD, Turkey
4 Middle-East Academy for Medicine of Aging, MD, Lebanon
5 medi-WORLD International, Australia

Correspondence:
Prof Dr Mehmet Rami Helvaci
07400, ALANYA, TurkeyPhone: 00-90-506-4708759
Email: mramihelvaci@hotmail.com

Received: October 2025; Accepted: November 2025; Published: November-December 2025
Citation: Helvaci MR et al. The term excess weight should be replaced with excess fat tissue in human body. Middle East Journal of Nursing 2025; 19(1): 21-37. DOI: 10.5742/MEJN2025.9378107

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ABSTRACT

Background: Atherosclerosis may be the main cause of aging and shortened survival.

Methods: All patients with sickle cell diseases (SCD) were included.

Results: We studied 222 males and 212 females with similar ages (30.8 vs 30.3 years, p>0.05, respectively). Smoking (23.8% vs 6.1%, p<0.001), alcohol (4.9% vs 0.4%, p<0.001), transfused red blood cells (RBC) in their lives (48.1 vs 28.5 units, p=0.000), disseminated teeth losses (5.4% vs 1.4%, p<0.001), ileus (7.2% vs 1.4%, p<0.001), stroke (12.1% vs 7.5%, p<0.05), chronic renal disease (CRD) (9.9% vs 6.1%, p<0.05), cirrhosis (8.1% vs 1.8%, p<0.001), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (25.2% vs 7.0%, p<0.001), coronary heart disease (18.0% vs 13.2%, p<0.05), leg ulcers (19.8% vs 7.0%, p<0.001), and clubbing (14.8% vs 6.6%, p<0.001) were all higher in males.

Conclusion: As an accelerated atherosclerotic process, hardened RBC-induced capillary endothelial damage initiating at birth terminates with multiorgan insufficiencies in early decades in SCD. As the most common cause of CRD, diabetes mellitus (DM) may actually be one of the atherosclerotic endpoints of the pancreas. Although atherosclerotic consequences are common in SCD, we have detected no case of DM probably due to lower body mass indexes. So excess fat may be much more significant than smoking, alcohol, or other chronic inflammatory or infectious processes for atherosclerosis. So the term of excess weight should be replaced with the term of excess fat tissue since there are nearly 33 kg of excess fat tissue between the lower border of normal weight and and upper border of overweight in adults.

Key words: Sickle cell diseases, excess weight, excess fat tissue, capillary endothelial inflammation, systemic atherosclerosis, acarbose, metformin