Too much body fat isn’t the problem, malfunctioning body fat is

This ability highlights one of the hallmarks of body fat: like brain tissue, adipose tissue is incredibly “plastic” — that is, it changes and adapts depending upon the body’s needs. Unfortunately, as Villanueva, Seale, and their colleagues point out, this plasticity can take a big hit in individuals with obesity.

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Citing a plethora of prior research, they suggest that some adipocytes can grow too large to receive enough oxygen from the available vasculature (the blood supply) causing these cells to die. This, in turn, leads to a cascade of detrimental effects: Dead fat cells cannot divide and create more cells, making it harder to store excess nutrients from food intake. Necrotizing adipocytes spill their own stored lipids, causing bodily havoc. Inflammatory cytokines are excreted. “Consequently, adipose tissue becomes insulin resistant, inflamed, and fibrotic, further compromising its function. All of these processes are continuous and mutually reinforcing, making it difficult to disentangle cause and effect,” the authors write.

This problem isn’t necessarily unique to individuals with obesity — even adipocytes in normal weight individuals can sometimes malfunction in this manner. But obese individuals do have more, often larger, fat cells, and thus more opportunities for their fat’s function to falter.

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