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How Fat Cells Work

EMULSIFICATION IN YOUR KITCHEN

When you add water to a greasy skillet, the greaseforms a layer on top of the water. If
you squeeze one drop of dishwashing liquid into the center of the skillet, you'll see the
large grease layer immediately break up into small droplets.

Body Fat Basics

The human body contains two types of fat tissue:

 White fat is important in energy metabolism, heat insulation and mechanical

cushioning.

 Brown fat is found mostly in newborn babies, between the shoulders, and is
important forthermogenesis (making heat). Since adult humans have little to no
brown fat, we'll concentrate on white fat in this article. See the bottom of this
page for more on brown fat.

Fat tissue is made up of fat cells, which are a unique type of cell. You can think of a fat
cell as a tiny plastic bag that holds a drop of fat. White fat cells are large cells that have
very little cytoplasm, only 15 percent cell volume, a small nucleus and one
large fat droplet that makes up 85 percent of cell volume.

How Fat Enters Your Body

When you eat food that contains fat, mostly triglycerides, it goes through your stomach
and intestines. In the intestines, the following happens: 

1. Large fat droplets get mixed with bile salts from the gall bladder in a process
calledemulsification. The mixture breaks up the large droplets into several
smaller droplets called micelles, increasing the fat's surface area.

2. The pancreas secretes enzymes called lipases that attack the surface of each

micelle and break the fats down into their parts, glycerol and fatty acids.

3. These parts get absorbed into the cells lining the intestine.

4. In the intestinal cell, the parts are reassembled into packages of fat molecules
(triglycerides) with a protein coating called chylomicrons. The protein coating
makes the fat dissolve more easily in water.
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5. The chylomicrons are released into the lymphatic system -- they do not go
directly into the bloodstream because they are too big to pass through the wall of
the capillary.

6. The lymphatic system eventually merges with the veins, at which point the
chylomicrons pass into the bloodstream.

You might be wondering why fat molecules get broken down into glycerol and fatty
acids if they're just going to be rebuilt. This is because fat molecules are too big to
easily cross cell membranes. So when passing from the intestine through the intestinal
cells into the lymph, or when crossing any cell barrier, the fats must be broken down.
But, when fats are being transported in the lymph or blood, it is better to have a few,
large fat molecules than many smaller fatty acids, because the larger fats do not
"attract" as many excess water molecules by osmosis as many smaller molecules
would.

Figure 2. How a fat cell stores fat, and converts glucose and amino acids into fat.

Fat Storage

In the last section, we learned how fat in the body is broken down and rebuilt
intochylomicrons, which enter the bloodstream by way of the lymphatic system.

Chylomicrons do not last long in the bloodstream -- only about eight minutes -- because
enzymes called lipoprotein lipases break the fats into fatty acids. Lipoprotein lipases
are found in the walls of blood vessels in fat tissue, muscle tissue and heart muscle.

Insulin
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When you eat a candy bar or a meal, the presence of glucose, amino acids or fatty
acidsin the intestine stimulates the pancreas to secrete a hormone called insulin. Insulin
acts on many cells in your body, especially those in the liver, muscle and fat tissue.
Insulin tells the cells to do the following:

 Absorb glucose, fatty acids and amino acids

 Stop breaking down glucose, fatty acids and amino acids; glycogen into

glucose; fats into fatty acids and glycerol; and proteins into amino acids

 Start building glycogen from glucose; fats (triglycerides) from glycerol and fatty

acids; and proteins from amino acids

The activity of lipoprotein lipases depends upon the levels of insulin in the body. If
insulin is high, then the lipases are highly active; if insulin is low, the lipases are
inactive.

The fatty acids are then absorbed from the blood into fat cells, muscle cells and liver
cells. In these cells, under stimulation by insulin, fatty acids are made into fat molecules
and stored as fat droplets.

It is also possible for fat cells to take up glucose and amino acids, which have been
absorbed into the bloodstream after a meal, and convert those into fat molecules. The
conversion of carbohydrates or protein into fat is 10 times less efficient than simply
storing fat in a fat cell, but the body can do it. If you have 100 extra calories in fat (about
11 grams) floating in your bloodstream, fat cells can store it using only 2.5 calories of
energy. On the other hand, if you have 100 extra calories in glucose (about 25 grams)
floating in your bloodstream, it takes 23 calories of energy to convert the glucose into fat
and then store it. Given a choice, a fat cell will grab the fat and store it rather than the
carbohydrates because fat is so much easier to store.

Next, we'll look at how your body breaks down fat.

BROWN FAT: MAKING HEAT

When you are first born, your body does not have much white fat to help insulate and
retain body heat; although there are white fat cells, there is not much fat stored in them.
Brown fat cells are somewhat smaller than white, are composed of several smaller fat
droplets and are loaded with mitochondria, which can generate heat. A newborn baby
produces heat (a process called thermo genesis) primarily by breaking down fat
molecules into fatty acids in brown fat cells. Instead of those fatty acids leaving the
brown fat cell, as happens in white fat cells, they get further broken down in the
mitochondria and their energy is released directly as heat. This same process occurs in
hibernating animals, which have more brown fat than humans. Once the newborn baby
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starts eating more, developing layers of white fat, the brown fat goes away. Adult
humans have little or no brown fat.

Figure 3. How a fat cell breaks down fat.

Breaking Down Fat

When you are not eating, your body is not absorbing food. If your body is not absorbing
food, there is little insulin in the blood. However, your body is always using energy; and
if you're not absorbing food, this energy must come from internal stores of complex
carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Under these conditions, various organs in your body
secrete hormones:

 pancreas - glucagon

 pituitary gland - growth hormone

 pituitary gland - ACTH(adrenocorticotropic hormone)

 adrenal gland - epinephrine (adrenaline)

 thyroid gland - thyroid hormone

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These hormones act on cells of the liver, muscle and fat tissue, and have the opposite
effects of insulin.

When you are not eating, or you are exercising, your body must draw on its internal
energy stores. Your body's prime source of energy is glucose. In fact, some cells in your
body, such as brain cells, can get energy only from glucose.

The first line of defense in maintaining energy is to break down carbohydrates,

or glycogen, into simple glucose molecules -- this process is called glycogenolysis.
Next, your body breaks down fats into glycerol and fatty acids in the process
of lipolysis. The fatty acids can then be broken down directly to get energy, or can be
used to make glucose through a multi-step process called gluconeogenesis. In
gluconeogenesis, amino acids can also be used to make glucose.

In the fat cell, other types of lipases work to break down fats into fatty acids and
glycerol. These lipases are activated by various hormones, such as glucagon,
epinephrine and growth hormone. The resulting glycerol and fatty acids are released
into the blood, and travel to the liver through the bloodstream. Once in the liver, the
glycerol and fatty acids can be either further broken down or used to make glucose.

Losing Weight and Losing Fat

Your weight is determined by the rate at which you store energy from the food that you
eat, and the rate at which you use that energy. Remember that as your body breaks
down fat, the number of fat cells remains the same; each fat cell simply gets smaller.

Most experts agree that the way to maintain a healthy weight is:

 Eat a balanced diet - appropriate amounts of carbohydrates, fat and protein

 Do not eat excessively - for most people, a diet of 1,500 to 2,000 calories a
day is sufficient to maintain a healthy weight

 Exercise regularly