Tears shed or due to excessive obesity

Recently, Mr. Li from Gucheng County, Hubei Province, has rewritten this "wise saying" with his own personal experience of illness. Due to his obesity, Mr. Li, who was elegant and dignified, inexplicably experienced the annoyance of tears streaming down his face when he reached middle age. Mr. Li, 48 years old, is a civil servant in Gucheng County. In his spare time, he has a good cultivation of literature and occasionally publishes novels and essays in various magazines and literary newspapers. Due to this elegant hobby, Mr. Li has made friends with literary youths from all over the country. Although he has a lot of social interactions in his daily life, he is admired by young literary enthusiasts all day long. Mr. Li lives a peaceful and contented life. A good mood, frequent socializing, and long-term desk writing have caused Mr. Li, who was already overweight, to gain weight. After the Spring Festival, with a height of 170 centimeters, his weight reached 85 kilograms. With increasing weight, Mr. Li found himself inexplicably shedding tears. Even during meetings or lectures for young literature enthusiasts, tears involuntarily flow downstream, which makes Mr. Li, who pays great attention to appearance, extremely embarrassed and angry.

Is the overflow of tears caused by obesity

a blockage in the lacrimal duct? Or is it inflammation? With a basic understanding of medical knowledge, he went to the ophthalmology clinic of the hospital multiple times to receive lacrimal irrigation treatment, but was told by doctors that the lacrimal duct was open. However, the unobstructed tear passage still cannot change Mr. Li's embarrassing situation of occasionally shedding tears for no reason. Helplessly, he came to the ophthalmology department of Xiangfan Central Hospital in Hubei Province, hoping to have his illness diagnosed.

Mr. Li was treated by Professor Huang Yi, the chief physician of the department. When Professor Huang carefully listened to his medical history and examined his eyes with instruments in the darkroom, he gave the diagnosis: Mr. Li's tears were not obstructed or inflamed, but caused by obesity.

Why does obesity lead to tears?"Can obesity also lead to tears? ”Faced with the puzzled expressions of Mr. Li and other patients, Professor Huang explained as follows:

People's tears come from the lacrimal gland. The lacrimal gland is composed of tubular glands and ducts, and it is the organ that secretes tears. After tears are produced, they are excreted through the lacrimal duct. The lacrimal duct is composed of lacrimal dots, lacrimal tubules, lacrimal sac, and nasolacrimal duct. There are two lacrimal punctures located on the inner side of the upper and lower eyelid margins. Tears enter the lacrimal canaliculus like a sewer through the lacrimal punctures and enter the lacrimal sac through the approximately 10 millimeter long lacrimal canaliculus. The lacrimal sac is specifically designed to collect and store tears, preventing them from flowing out. But when the human body becomes obese, especially when fat accumulates on the face and eyes, the compression of fat changes the position of the eyelids and lacrimal punctures, causing the opening of the lacrimal punctures to deviate from the opening of the lacrimal ducts, resulting in involuntary tear overflow. To change this phenomenon, in addition to weight loss, surgical correction therapy can also be used.

Losing weight is also necessary for the eyes.

According to Huang Yi, similar situations to Mr. Li's are quite common in ophthalmology clinical practice. He suggested that middle-aged and elderly people should not only pay attention to their physical health, but also to their eye health. Controlling weight and reducing obesity are not only necessary for preventing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, but also for the eyes.