The researchers in Sweden reported Sunday that their study revealed that we have a total number of fat cells in our body. Whether you are thin or fat, lose weight or gain it, 10 percent of your bodies fat cells die every year. New fat cells grow to replace the ones that have died according to their findings published in the journal Nature on Sunday. Fat cells can only change in size not number. So when an individual loses weight, their fat cells shrink, which creates a signal to the body to fill them up, making people regain.
Obesity researchers are looking at this very closely to see if obesity could be treated by making fat cells die quicker than they are born. Dr. Lester Salans, an obesity researcher at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York said, “This is a new way of looking at obesity.” He also warned that even if scientists knew how the fat cell system worked, it was uncertain how safe or effective treatment would be. He said, “I suspect that the body’s regulation of weight is so complex that if you intervene at this site, something else is going to happen to neutralize this intervention.”
The study also raises questions like what happens to people who are thin until adults and then gain a lot of weight. What determines how many fat cells an individual has? Another study of 35 people who had liposuction or abdominal wall reconstruction, determined that even two years after their surgeries, they had the same amount of fat cells as before. This means that the number of cells being born were equal to the number dying. Researchers will continue to search for the answer to what regulates this process and how we can use it to treat obesity.
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