Fat: Nine Things You Didn’t Know

Fat: Nine Things You Didn’t Know

Fat is not just a fuel storage mechanism. Researchers now recognize that fat tissue is a "discrete, active organ in its own right", exchanging constant messages via the bloodstream with other physiological processes in the body.

Reporters Anne Underwood and Jerry Adler have gathered the latest research on the biochemistry of fat. The following are nine facts about fat and weight loss you probably did not know:

1. Fat cells are not all the same. Fat on your hips and thighs (having a pear-shaped body) is less dangerous than abdominal fat (an apple-shaped body). This is because hip/thigh fat is more metabolically active. Abdominal fat, on the other hand, has greater associations with diabetes, high blood pressure, inflammation, and blood clotting.
2. Where you accumulate fat on your body is not necessarily genetic, but determined by the kind of food you eat. Eating refined carbs (rice, pasta, white bread) leads to more abdominal fat. Eating grains, fruits, vegetables, and beans leads to accumulation of fat on other parts of your body.
3. Some obese people have low levels of a hormone called "leptin." Low levels of this leptin lead to uncontrollable urges to eat. In 1994, obese mice missing leptin were injected with the hormone, and subsequently lost sizeable weight. This is because leptin helps speed metabolism and stabilize body weight. For the rare individual actually missing this hormone, leptin injections work wonders. For other overweight people who already have this hormone, increased leptin injections mysteriously fail.
4. Fat cells attract immune agents known as "macrophages," and these macrophages promote inflammation in the body. Inflammation fights infection, but is also a key factor in heart disease, even more significant than cholesterol’s narrowing of the arteries.
5. Fat produces "plasminogen activator inhibitor-1" and "angiotensinogen" which are two molecules that perform special functions in your blood. The former stops the body from producing anti-clotting agents (which would thin your blood), and the latter contributes to high blood pressure.
6. Excess fatty acids in your blood can counter your "nitric oxide", a compound that relaxes your blood vessels and reduces blood pressure.
7. Fat secretes estrogen, which is linked to breast cancer, among other cancers.
8. The root of diabetes has some connection with fat. Diabetes results from too much sugar in the blood – not so much from diet but from insulin’s inability to "uptake it" from the blood. Fat produces two compounds that interfere with insulin: "resistin" and "tumor necrosis factor alpha". The resistin converts more fatty acids into sugar. The more fat you have, the more resistin you make, and more fat gets converted into sugar. In short, your diabetes gets worse as your fat increases.
9. Fat also produces "adiponectin", the one good compound fat makes. Adiponectin improves cholesterol balance, increases insulin activity, and reduces inflammation. The problem is that the more fat you have, the more this adiponectin compound is overshadowed by resistin.

Fat is a lot more complex than researchers originally imagined. It’s not just an unnecessary storage function, reminiscent of an age where finding and having enough food was key to survival. As a major fuel source, fat has a strong influence on many body functions. Researchers hope that by unraveling more of the biochemistry of fat, they can finally stumble across the key element that will lead to a turnaround in the obesity epidemic.

What can you do if you have excess fat?

1. Avoid “bad fats”. These include trans fats, which are man-made and unhealthy fats, such as margarine, Crisco, deep-fried foods, and most baked goods found in plastic packages on grocery shelves.
2. Eat good fats: cold pressed oils, fish oils, vegetable oils like coconut, and palm oils.
3. Avoid refined carbohydrates. Refined carbohydrates include processed white-flour foods in which the grain and fiber has been removed, for example; sugary cereals, white bread, white rice, pasta and noodles from white flour, white crackers, etc.
4. Exercise for an hour a day, six days a week. Two days a week, add strength training.
5. Have one "cheat meal" a week, in which you eat whatever you like!

Enjoy!

Dr. Minkoff

"What You Don’t Know About Fat"
By Anne Underwood and Jerry Adler
Newsweek / MSNBC.com