Adipose Tissue, the final word

Ok I would like a final word on adipose tissue. I was under the impression that you can not "gain" fat cells. It is merely adipose tissue that either shrinks or expands but no cells are actually "gained."

A friend of mine's father has a PhD in Biology and claims that it is possible to gain fat cells and once you have them you can't "lose" them without liposuction, you can only shrink them. Therefore once you get fat, it is forever harder to stay lean and easier to get fat again.

Can someone offer a final word on this? Some sort of source or text reference would be helpful as well, as my friend is more likely to be convinced by that rather than some guy calling himself TNT or Dr. Evil on a steroid board ;)

Lol I believe I have answered my own question :D Take a look at this and tell me if you disagree. It was taken from the Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine and Science webpage www.sportsci.org/encyc/adipose/adipose.html

"The developmental sequence of adipose tissue in humans is less well defined. In contrast to most neonates, the human neonate is born relatively fat. Two periods of hyperplastic growth are probably during the third trimester of pregnancy and just prior to and during puberty.

Contrary to earlier belief, hyperplastic growth can also occur in adulthood (in both humans and rats). When adipocytes fill with lipid and get to a critical size, precursor cells are stimulated to differentiate, and an increase in adipocyte number results. This critical size probably does not occur with moderate overfeeding unless the overfeeding is of long duration. In addition, there are probably individual differences in the size that will result in new adipocyte formation. Once new adipocytes are formed, they remain throughout life and only a reduction in size of the cell is possible. This increased number of adipocytes has far-reaching consequences for the treatment and prevention of obesity."

Whether the addition of adipocytes to the body translates to it being harder to stay lean, I do not know. Anyone care to help out with that? I'll keep looking and post if I figure it out on my own.

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Originally posted by McBain
Lol I believe I have answered my own question :D Take a look at this and tell me if you disagree. It was taken from the Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine and Science webpage www.sportsci.org/encyc/adipose/adipose.html

"The developmental sequence of adipose tissue in humans is less well defined. In contrast to most neonates, the human neonate is born relatively fat. Two periods of hyperplastic growth are probably during the third trimester of pregnancy and just prior to and during puberty.

Contrary to earlier belief, hyperplastic growth can also occur in adulthood (in both humans and rats). When adipocytes fill with lipid and get to a critical size, precursor cells are stimulated to differentiate, and an increase in adipocyte number results. This critical size probably does not occur with moderate overfeeding unless the overfeeding is of long duration. In addition, there are probably individual differences in the size that will result in new adipocyte formation. Once new adipocytes are formed, they remain throughout life and only a reduction in size of the cell is possible. This increased number of adipocytes has far-reaching consequences for the treatment and prevention of obesity."

Whether the addition of adipocytes to the body translates to it being harder to stay lean, I do not know. Anyone care to help out with that? I'll keep looking and post if I figure it out on my own.

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Although possible, it's unlikely for one to gain fat cells as an adult. The total number of fat cells is predominantly determined in the womb/early childhood. The only route to getting rid of fat cells in the body (to the best of my knowledge) is via surgery (liposuction) or medication (some drugs to treat cancer patients have shown to rid of fat cells).

Took this from a webpage www.omen.com/adipos.html

"Size and Number of Fat Cells
Is obesity caused by an excess number of fat cells or by gross enlargement of a normal number of fat cells? The answer to this question has heavy implications for the possible success of various weight loss strategies.
Lean individuals have 20 to 40 billion fat cells. Fat cells can expand to no more than twice normal size. Some obese subjects have ten times as many fat cells as normal. Bjorntorp and Sjostrom (METABOLISM V20;7;703) have observed an association between high fat cell numbers (hyperplasia), more severe obesity, and childhood onset obesity. A number of studies have found that subjects with childhood onset obesity have more difficulty losing weight and are more likely to regain more weight than they lose dieting, putting them at risk of hyperobesity from diet induced weight cycling.

A study published in the Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on Obesity showed that obese subjects who had lost weight had fat cells 25 per cent smaller than those of marathon runners who had half the total body fat. The dieters had twice as many fat cells as the athletes.

The defense of body weight against a reduction in diet palatability is much stronger in animals and humans with normal size or small fat cells than in individuals with enlarged fat cells. (Clinical Neuropharmacology Vol 11 Suppl 1 S1-7) This would explain why it is much more difficult for obese individuals to reach and maintain ideal weight.

See "Weight Cycling" below for more information on how diets actually increase fat cell numbers."


It's nice I got a response from a really smart bro ;) Hope my talking to myself might shed some light on fat cells for others.

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Originally posted by McBain
Whether the addition of adipocytes to the body translates to it being harder to stay lean, I do not know. Anyone care to help out with that? I'll keep looking and post if I figure it out on my own.

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IMO the addition of fat cells wouldn't really account for ones inability to stay lean, although fat storage is of course more likely. Keep in mind the amount of leptin released is a product of the number of fat cells as well as the mass of the cells. JMO of course.

it looks like we posted that at the same exact time and it's actually perfect because the study you cited actually confirms my post underneath it :)

Yeah, I saw that, worked out pretty well huh? :)

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Originally posted by jbrand


Although possible, it's unlikely for one to gain fat cells as an adult. The total number of fat cells is predominantly determined in the womb/early childhood. The only route to getting rid of fat cells in the body (to the best of my knowledge) is via surgery (liposuction) or medication (some drugs to treat cancer patients have shown to rid of fat cells).

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Thanks for the response. Any other opinions on how hard it is to gain fat cells as an adult. Any sources to back up the opinions would be great.

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Originally posted by McBain
Yeah, I saw that, worked out pretty well huh? :)


Thanks for the response. Any other opinions on how hard it is to gain fat cells as an adult. Any sources to back up the opinions would be great.

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Well to think about it logically the reason the body would produce new fat cells (hyperplasia) would be a result of gaining a significant amount of bodyfat which was too much to be stored by the current fat cells.

That's my understanding, but what exactly is a significant amount? 20% bodyfat? 30%? I know it will revolve largely around genetics but some sort of ballpark would be helpful.

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Originally posted by McBain
That's my understanding, but what exactly is a significant amount? 20% bodyfat? 30%? I know it will revolve largely around genetics but some sort of ballpark would be helpful.

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It has to be based on an individual to individual process. There is no way to come up with one ballpark figure when such information as previous bf%, pre-determined # of fat cells, and the mass of those cells are not present.

Hmm, there must be some sort of ballpark I would think, as there must be some sort of average number of fat cells per individual, and an average amount of fat each individual cell can hold. Maybe additional fat cells aren't created _right_ after the current fat cell storages are full, but I wouldn't think that addition fat cells would be created if the body had room in other fat cells to store the excess fat, so this might give us a ballpark.

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Originally posted by McBain
Hmm, there must be some sort of ballpark I would think, as there must be some sort of average number of fat cells per individual, and an average amount of fat each individual cell can hold. Maybe additional fat cells aren't created _right_ after the current fat cell storages are full, but I wouldn't think that addition fat cells would be created if the body had room in other fat cells to store the excess fat, so this might give us a ballpark.

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I can't help you with a figure as to when hyperplasia occurs, but the normal non-obese person has around 30 billion fat cells, whereas obese individuals have been in the upwards of 200 billion.

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Originally posted by jbrand


I can't help you with a figure as to when hyperplasia occurs, but the normal non-obese person has around 30 billion fat cells, whereas obese individuals have been in the upwards of 200 billion.

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I've tried to some searching on when hyperplasia will occur with no luck. Hopefully some people can shed some light on this tomorrow. Bed time for me, bah I've spent a good 2 hours reading instead of writing my final paper lol.

bump

I'll bump for ya.. very interesting info here.

bump again, looking for some way of determining when hyperplasia will occur?

bump for ya.

C'mon someone has to have some idea or at least tell me I'm an idiot and it's impossible to determine.

Gonna bump one last time

I lied, I'm bumping again :) Also another question will DNP, t3, clen, Ephedra, or caffeine destroy fat cells? I was under the impression that they won't, that only drugs that are used to treat breast cancer will.