Fat cells don't go away?

msarro

In a couple of different health classes in high school (this is about 10 years ago) we were told that once fat cells are created, they never disappear. Basically, they just lose their contents, so you'll always have these empty cell membranes/shrunken fat cells floating around. This never made much sense to me, but I needed to know it for a test.

Now, is this true or not? Why or why not? Bodies tend to not leave pointless materials around when they can be used for other things. Cell membranes are made of fatty tissue, which could be used for any number of other purposes.

leavinglasvegas

A very interesting question. I found this on Oprah.com

Q: Is it true that I'm stuck with the fat cells I have? Or is there some way I can lose them?
— Anonymous

A: No, you're not stuck: You can shed fat cells, but you won't find it to be a stroll in the park. When we gain weight as adults, we are mostly enlarging the fat cells we have instead of adding more. This process has a medical name: hypertrophic obesity.

Reversing this type of weight gain requires shrinking the cells, but they don't put up a huge fight when being shrunk from plus size back to normal. While not exactly easy, this type of weight loss is more doable than reversing the other kind of obesity: hyperplastic.

When we quickly put on a lot of pounds in early childhood, at puberty, and sometimes even as adults, we can grow new fat cells. Known as hyperplastic obesity, it poses a daunting challenge. The only way to be thin if you have an excessive population of fat cells is to shrink them below normal size, which is where things get really tough. The cells begin to produce less leptin, a hormone that signals the brain when you're full. You'll end up feeling ravenous all the time. If you find the will to lose more than 10 percent of your body weight (more than 20 pounds for someone who weighs 200), eventually you'll induce a process called apoptosis—cell death. You could begin trimming your population of fat cells. Once you do, you'll find that maintaining a lower weight gets easier.

VballLeash

Yup its true, according to my exercise physiology teacher you cannot decrease the number in fat cells but you can decrease the size of them therefore losing weight, this is why it can be so hard to keep the weight off... sorry to tell you the bad news!

~Leash

angiered

Yep. Sad but true.

If you good "Fat cells never go away" you'll get lots and lots of articles on the topic.

ETA: Or not! Wow, that's an interesting article Cullen! Thanks for posting that!

LittleSpy

I was just thinking about this last night.

1st of all, all cells DO die. All "cells" have a natural life cycle. The theory that a fat cell remains forever once created seems to have been widely discredited in the late 90's and after. I'm unsure of the role of "fat stem cells," though. The point is that fat cells have a normal turnover just like any cells in your body -- liver, skin, muscle, etc. My thought is that once a cell has died, if you don't have a need for that cell, it won't be replaced. When I have time, I'll look for research articles online.

savvystephy

Very interesting topic.

Magenta15

i don't know why or why not [i forget] but yes, DR OZ talked about the same thing on oprah one day :laugh:
we need fat cells, we just don't need them as full as we seem to lol

Its main role is to store energy in the form of fat, although it also cushions and insulates the body.
Two types of adipose (body fat) tissue exist: white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT). Adipose tissue also serves as an important endocrine organ[1] by producing hormones such as leptin, resistin, and the cytokine

do a lil googling you'll find answers