New research into obesity carried out in Sweden could change the way the condition is treated, say Australian scientists.The study found that, every year, around ten per cent of a person's fat cells die and are replaced. Scientists have long known that fat cells in adult humans die, but the study shows this turnaround to be much faster than previously thought."A lot of people would have expected that fat cells might actually be with us forever. So once you're born with a certain number of fat cells, you might die with exactly the same cohort of fat cells," said David James, director of the Australian Garvan Institute's Diabetes and Obesity Research Programme.
Australian researchers into obesity say a new Swedish study could change the way obesity is treated. Photo: Cornfed. Credit: mahalie/flickr
"But what these observations would suggest is that we're constantly making new fat cells and killing off old fat cells," he said to the ABC.Jon Prins, professor of endocrinology at the University of Queensland told the PM programme the Swedish discovery could have an impact on the way obesity is treated."We could stop new cells being formed at the same speed, but continue to allow the old cells to die at the same rate," he told the PM programme."You'd eventually get a reduction in the number of cells. That means that if you could halve the rate of new cell formation or if you could double the rate of cell deaths in fat tissue, you could significantly change fat mass, you know, talking in a month to year strategy."However Mark Febbraio, a research fellow at the Baker Institute's Cellular and Molecular Metabolism Laboratory said treating the condition by reducing the number of fat cells wasn't going to be that easy and could even be dangerous."To me, it would appear that unless regulating the fat cell number has an effect on signals from the fat cell to the brain, then no I don't think it's going to be a very simple process," he told PM."Because unless there's modification of intake, energy intake or energy expenditure then the possibility is there that the excess nutrient, rather than going into the fat cell, of which there are going to be lower numbers now, going to be deposited into tissues that aren't used to having a lot of fat in those tissues, those being the skeletal muscle and the liver.""And we know from extensive studies that if you have excess lipid in those tissues, there's a phenomenon of lipotoxicity leading to disregulation of, for example, insulin-signalling pathways in those tissues," he said.Despite the breakthrough in fat cell turnaround, experts still believe any cure is still years away and continue to recommend regular exercise and a healthy diet as the best way to lose weight.
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