Fat cells: Shrink, Grow, Multiple?

janiedoe111

Can someone please point me in the direction of concrete evidence to support either of these claims?

People who have been obese for a longer period of time have additional fat cells from other "normal people". Once an obese person loses weight their fat cells can shrink but if any period of overeating occurs it is easier for those people who were obese for a period of time to regain the weight because they have additional fat cells. (ALSO, if this is true, will the once obese people ever get as thin as people who carried smaller amounts of weight).

vs.

Adults have a constant number of fat cells regardless of weight or obesity status.

elsinora

The latter. You have a set number of fat cells that expand or shrink but don't eliminate. This article will point you to the study and the science (I'm on my mobile phone ATM so dif to copy and paste links) but Nature is all staffed by biologists and only report on peer reviewed studies.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080505/full/news.2008.800.html

If you get the names and search forthe papers, you can get them online

brokenjawedmuse

Here are some (fairly) reliable sources:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/4208-need-fat-cell-theory/
Most interesting part: "The good news is that long term studies on fat cell theory have proven that the body can in fact lose fat cells; however, the process isn't easy and can take years. While fat cells shrink during a few weeks or months of traditional dieting, if you change your lifestyle habits for good, your body will begin to slowly eliminate fat cells as they become unnecessary. That is, if there is no excess fat to store in a cell for a sufficient amount of time, the body will let it go. While long-term weight loss and elimination of excess fat cells will take years and permanent changes, you can say goodbye to yo-yo dieting."



Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/4208-need-fat-cell-theory/#ixzz2IeDFmuf8

Study Finds That Fat Cells Die And Are Replaced: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/health/research/05fat.html?_r=0
(Not quite as traumatizing as it sounds)

WBB55

"These results show that in obese women, hyperplasia is predominant in the subcutaneous fat depot, whereas fat cell hypertrophy is observed both in the omental and subcutaneous compartments."

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17726433

hyperplasia=increase in number of cells
hypertrophy=increase in size of cells