Shedding excess pounds can improve your sense of well-being and motivate you to lose more weight. However, continuing to lose weight until you are medically underweight has many potential negative health consequences. Several common symptoms arise when a person has lost too much weight, or lost significant amounts of weight in a very short time. Consult a health care professional if you think you may have lost too much weight, or if you are concerned about a friend or loved one who may be dangerously underweight.
Hair Loss
Losing too much weight can lead to a hair-loss pattern known as Telogen effluvium. MedLine Plus reports that this can cause between one-half to three-quarters of your scalp hair to shed over a period of several weeks to a month. Commonly caused by physical or emotional stress, Telogen effluvium often occurs in response to crash dieting, losing too much weight or insufficient dietary protein.
Diabetes and Insulin Resistance
Even if you have no prior diabetic symptoms, sudden or excessive weight loss can cause both insulin resistance and diabetes mellitus. The "Journal of Diabetes and Its Complications" discusses the cases of seven patients who lost significant amounts of weight rapidly. All of these patients developed diabetes mellitus -- two with insulin dependency and five without insulin dependency. The study authors indicated that stress hormone levels -- increased due to sudden weight loss -- were responsible for the development of diabetes.
Starvation Symptoms
When you lose too much weight, your body may adopt a starvation mode -- it begins to use lean muscle mass as a source of calories when body fat is extremely low. Symptoms of starvation include constant feelings of fatigue and irritability. Your chances of feeling dizzy, faint or even losing consciousness increase when you are in starvation mode, making activities such as driving or operating heavy machinery dangerous. Other symptoms of being medically underweight include altered menstrual cycles, or a complete absence of normal menstruation.
Body Hair
While losing too much weight can cause hair loss from the scalp, it can also lead to the development of new body hair on the arms, face and back. This condition is known as lanugo, and it is your body's response to starvation conditions. The soft downy hair associated with lanugo is intended to keep your body warm when your body fat composition is insufficient for insulation.
References
- Mayo Clinic: Obesity Treatment and Drugs
- "Journal of Diabetes Complications"; Starvation Diet and Very-Low-Calorie Diets May Induce Insulin Resistance and Overt Diabetes Mellitus; M. Koffler et al.; March 1996
- MedLine Plus: Hair Loss
- Medline Plus: Anorexia Nervosa
- Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center: Consequences of Eating Disorders
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