Fat cells ... ?

[Externet]

Hi all.

  Saw this, never seen before :  Adults not creating new fat cells.  Is it true ?

Can anyone explain how adults get fatter ?  Do the same cells since a youngster get bigger instead of adding 'new' ? 🤔

 

Edited, added :

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Externet
Added text image

[Peterkin]

29 minutes ago, Externet said:

Do the same cells since a youngster get bigger

Yep. They just keep expanding to accommodate the fat they're required to store.

[CharonY]

That is actually not quite true. There was the notion that fully differentiated adipose cells never die and since the total number of adipose tissues stays roughly constant, it was consensus until around 2005 that no new adipose cells are formed in adulthood (or more specifically that adipose cell progenitors do not proliferate anymore).

However, a hallmark study by Cinti et al. showed evidence of dead fat cells in obese humans and rodents (https://doi.org/10.1194/jlr.M500294-JLR200). This suggested that there is some kind of cellular turnover to keep the cell number constant.

Other important studies include a paper from the Karolinska institute ca. 2008 (the author eludes me) showed that there is a slow turnover of fat cells (cells die, get cleared and new cells are formed) but it is a tightly regulated process which maintains the total fat cell number constant, even after weight loss. In other words, it is a quasi-steady-state situation.

That being said, I have no idea what the impact of liposuction is on this regulatory system. It is kind of an interesting question, actually.