New Research On Fat Cells May Prevent Obesity
Fat cells don’t behave like other cells in our body. Unlike other cells, they don’t wear out and die and even though we might feel like fat cells multiply, they don’t actually undergo replication. That’s why no one ever develops cancer of the fat.
So if fat cells don’t multiply, just how do we get fat? Fat cells, otherwise known as “adipocyte cells” are the only tissue that changes its mass after adult size is reached. It increases in size because more lipids are deposited in the cells. They become overstuffed and increase in mass to accommodate the lipids. We also have precursor fat cells called “preadipocytes” and these develop to become fat cells. Through both of these mechanisms, we develop more and larger fat cells.
Most scientists believe that the total number of fat cells we have is set during adolescence, but new research published this week on-line in PLoS ONE challenges this assumption. This is significant because the researchers believe that by understanding how precursor fat cells replicate, treatment may be aimed at preventing this thereby preventing obesity.
What we do know is that fat cells increase substantially in number during adolescence and having an elevated number of these cells is a predictor of obesity later in life. This new research shows that there is cell turnover of adipose tissue via preadipocytes.
The research, led by Alessandra Rigamonti from the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, proposes that there might be two time points of therapeutic intervention in the development of obesity. “The ability to slow the rate of preadipocyte replication during this critical period of development (during adolescence) may prevent both juvenile and/or adult obesity. Second, if adult obesity itself is caused, or exacerbated, by elevated rates of preadipocyte replication, then targeted intervention to reduce preadipocyte replication in adults may facilitate weight loss in obese patients.”
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