Adipogenesia, osasunaren etsai edo lagun?

Abstract

The white adipose tissue (WAT), which is made up of adipocytes, is the main energy storage in the body. Depending on its distribution within the body, subcutaneous WAT (SWAT) and visceral WAT (VWAT) can be differentiated. With regard to adipocytes, those in the VWAT are metabolically more active than those from the SWAT, which tend to be bigger and have greater capacity to bind lipids. Obesity induces WAT expansion in two ways: increasing the amount of adipocytes, or increasing their size (hyperplasia and hypertrophy, respectively). These changes can affect the adequate functioning of this tissue. In this context, the WAT expansion driven by hypertrophy tend to be associated with obesity and related metabolic alterations. In order to highlight the importance of adipocyte hyperplasia and hypertrophy in the development of obesity related comorbidities, the terms “metabolically healthy obese” and “false slim” have been proposed. The first one refers to those subjects who don´t present metabolic alterations other than obesity itself. By contrast, the latter tend to have higher pro-inflammatory cytokine blood levels even though their body weight is normal. Altogether, it is clear the necessity of more research devoted to characterizing both, the expansion of adipose tissue in obese subjects and methods to identify “metabolically healthy obese” and “false slim” subjects.