Fat Storage
When fat cells break, it’s like an oil tanker being hit. It unloads this toxic cargo, almost like an oil slick.
This article in the New Scientist explores the role of fat storage in human beings.
Question – is food or fat the problem? I am guessing that you chose #2. In a perfect world, we could eat pizza and drink liters of Mountain Dew without worrying about piling on pounds. Fat girls like me are jealous of mythological skinny people who can eat all day long without gaining an ounce. It’s not the FOOD – it’s the ugly fat that makes life miserable.
Diabetes researchers Roger Unger and Philipp Scherer, both at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, have studied the role of fat storage and metabolism. Conclusion – fat cells protect us from the effects of overeating.
Their research holds the potential to answer some of the mysteries surrounding obesity and metabolic syndrome. Ever wonder why some fat people are fairly healthy and others suffer from a laundry list of health problems?
In 2008, a study found that half of overweight and a third of obese Americans had healthy metabolic profiles, whereas a quarter of “lean” people had signs of metabolic syndrome (Archives of Internal Medicine, vol 168, p 1617).
Which statistic is more surprising – that 30% of obese people in the study were healthy or that 25% of normal weight people showed signs of metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance, high blood cholesterol, increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke)?
Unger and Scherer suspect that fat cells explain the paradox. As long as fat cells are doing their job, metabolic syndrome does not manifest itself. Like jiggly water balloons, fat cells hold the byproducts of excess fat and sugar (triglycerides).
Only when the body’s fat cells, or adipocytes, are crammed to capacity do the problems of metabolic syndrome begin. The fully engorged adipocytes begin to die and leak their contents into the bloodstream, including saturated fatty acids such as palmitic acid. Such fats then accumulate in tissues such as the liver, pancreas and heart, where they may prompt the symptoms of metabolic syndrome.
Research like this will someday lead to effective treatments for obesity and metabolic syndrome.
