Various signs related to metabolic syndrome seem to be related to obesity, but properly not the way we expected it. Some common symptoms of the metabolic syndrome are fatty liver, insulin resistance, high cholesterol and a high risk of heart disease and diabetes. We all think of obesity as a cause to metabolic syndrome. However, the 2010 March 9th issue of the Cell Press publication Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism are giving us another perspective.
Roger Unger of the University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas says that obesity is a way used by the body to store lipids where they should be kept. Lipids are kept in fat tissues where they belong away from organs avoiding lipids’ toxic effect. However, once an excess amount of calories gets into the body the fatty tissues are stressed up and unable to handle lipids. The fatty tissues are unable to store lipids where they belong and the cascade sings of the metabolic syndrome starts.
In America the eating habits have deteriorated since the 1950s towards high-calorie diets packed with fats and carbs. New technology has worsened the effect by making us more immobile without the need to travel or walk as we have more advanced communication and transport systems. The emerging epidemic of metabolic syndrome will thus certainly perpetrate even more. The easy and cheap availability of bad calories can make almost anyone overweight.
There is plenty of evidence supporting the fact that obesity plays a protective role according to Unger. Experiments were conducted on mice in laboratories. The level of fats was decreased and increased. It was deducted that it had an adipogenesis, which literally means that the production of fat cells do retard the effect of eating too much. The contrary is also true that obesity-resistant mice appear to suffer from intense diabetes if they eat too much due to the accumulation of lipid in other tissues apart from fat tissues.
It is not yet known whether insulin resistance is the main source of metabolic syndrome. According to Unger, insulin resistance isn’t the primary cause of metabolic syndrome. He argues that it is simply a “passive byproduct” of fat depositions. That has accumulated in muscles and liver once the fat tissues were unable to handle lipids.
Unger claims that cells that have had too much fat would start to reject glucose. This would lead to a rise in urine and blood levels. The body is actually subtracted glucose by fat. The body should exclude surpluses of glucose as it can result to be protective.
Obesity has therefore its protective attributes against metabolic syndrome. A critical aspect of the mechanism is resistance to the fat hormone leptin. It is also commonly known as appetite-suppressing effect. This hormone is in charge of the partitioning of fats within our body. Moreover, as more fat is stored the level of leptin increases as an adaptive response mechanism.
The resistance “leptin” limits the storing capacity of fats. Some people have gifted genes and can accommodate a higher storage of lipid in fat tissues without needing to be obese, overweight or suffer from any other symptoms.
The level of calories consumed should be regulated. In our lifetime, we will all become “leptin resistant” according to Unger. Usually once, we surpass our reproductive years; this protective mechanism will be gone. There will thus be an increasing need to do exercise and control our diet.
It is thus quite certain that high calorie foods causes metabolic syndrome. According to Unger, if ever a gigantic study would be conducted on people who eat surpluses of inexpensive calorie-dense diets high in fats as well as carbohydrates, it would be possible that out of 200 million subjects being overweight around 25 percent would suffer from metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome could be most effectively challenged by consuming high quality foods. Obesity can protect one from metabolic syndrome by storing lipid in the fat tissues but only as long as a high-quality calorie is consumed.
Source: Cell Press
Thu, Apr 1, 2010
Health And Aging, Lifestyle