LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

subcutaneous fat

Critical Difference in Lazy Versus Healthy Abdominal Fat

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Your first thought may be that you didn’t know we had “healthy” abdominal fat. In general, you would be correct. But abdominal fat DOES serve a purpose.

Just ask an Inuit Eskimo or a hibernating polar bear if there is a healthy use for abdominal fat. Abdominal fat is designed as a storage depot for excess calories to be used under times of hardship. So it actually has a purpose. I Just got back from seeing Disney’s new movie Bears. It is about a mama bear’s (Sky) struggle to put on fat to make it through the winter to keep her two baby cubs alive. At no point in the movie did the narrator point out that Sky was looking a little too plump and needed to cut back on her calories and exercise a little more.

Nope. She needed the fat.

The rest of us? Or at least the rest of us that have some 8,000 calories available in a mere 25 foot walk to the fridge? This fat has moved beyond storage to disease causing. Most of the abdominal fat present in todays’ society is the bad kind; a result of too many calories with too little nutrient quality. Ultimately the fat runs out of a decent blood supply and goes rogue. This abdominal fat takes on a life of its own and becomes its own organ system, kicking out inflammation-causing hormones that lead to heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and cancer. All things that we would all arguably like to avoid.

Generally, we think in terms of visceral (bad) and subcutaneous (not bad) fat. However, the dividing line is not all that clear. This particular study takes a more in-depth look at the antioxidant status present within both types of fat in a group of 50 women. These women were divided into two groups: normal weight and obese.

But here’s where it gets interesting. The then further divided these two groups into two subgroups: metabolically healthy and metabolically obese. Just because someone does not appear to be at risk for heart disease, diabetes and cancer on the outside based on body fat does not mean that blood work tells a different story.

The term “metobolically obese” refers to those (regardless of how much fat they have) who are insulin resistant / prediabetic based on insulin levels (HOMA-IR), triglyceride levels, total cholesterol as well as LDL- and HDL-cholesterol levels. In other words, you can have a skinny person who is still at great risk of diabetes and heart disease (referred to a normal weight, metabolically obese).

In these four groups, certain antioxidants (glutathione/GSH and GSH-dependent enzyme activities) and markers of oxidative damage (specifically NADPH oxidase protein and 4-hydroxynonenal levels) were measured. Here’s what they found:

  • Visceral fat had higher levels of antioxidants (glutathione/GSH and GSH-dependent enzyme activities).
  • However, obese women had less of the antioxidants in both types of fat.
  • However, in the obese women, oxidative damage levels were higher and there were lower levels of antioxidants only in the visceral fat.

Basically, when we are at a more ideal weight, the fat that is present in our bodies, regardless of where it is, has the ability to protect itself.  As more and more fat collects in the abdominal region, this tissue becomes metabolically stressed out (more and more oxidative stress).  This change is not for the better and leads to all the problems associated with abdominal fat like heart disease, strokes, diabetes and cancer.

Interestingly, laser “liposuction” may be just what the doctor ordered.  This tool has the potential to improve the health of abdominal fat cells and lower the risk of chronic disease.  In our office, we have seen reduction in the volume of the the abdominal fat in just a few short treatments.  It would be interesting to see what would happen if medicine increased the use of this tool for those with excessive abdominal fat.

Abdominal Fat Cells: 2 Reasons Why Bigger is NOT Better

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Ever since our office discovered the laser lipo unit, it seems like the research supporting this approach to curb inflammation has been everywhere.

Or maybe, just like the new car you just bought you thought no one else had that you now see everywhere, I’m just looking for research along this avenue more.

Either way, it’s interesting, to say the least.  It is becoming more and more clear that inflammation coming from that extra fat you are carrying around your middle is setting your body and health on fire.  And not in a good way.  This inflammation is driven by hormones released by the fat cells when they become angry from the wrong lifestyle choices.

This particular study requires a wee bit of background.  First, there are a few major depots of fat in the human body.  Visceral fat is the fat around your organs, sometimes referred to as omental fat (the omentum is the fascial tissue acting like a web connecting all of your internal organs, loaded with fat and blood vessels).  There is no doubt that visceral adipose tissue is not a good thing.

Subcutaneous fat is the fat found just under your skin that serves to keep you warm and cushion you when you fall back onto your buttocks.  In general, this type of fat has been thought to be less related to chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes as visceral fat.

Or, at least, that’s what I thought before I delved into some basic background research for this post.  About 3 hours later (who needs sleep??)  I’ve come to the conclusion that we still have no idea whatsoever about the human body.  Why?

Because there is a growing body of research that suggests that our subcutaneous fat may actually help us keep our visceral fat in check.  In particular, subcutaneous fat produces more of a compound called caveolin-1 (CAV-1).  CAV-1 has been shown to protect against diabetes.

As I read through this, a blog article I did several years ago made much more sense.  In the article, I reviewed the findings that, after liposuction that removed subcutaneous fat, there was a bounce-back 10% increase in visceral adipose tissue.

With this in mind, I need to get back to the article.  In it, researchers looked at fat removed during surgery from 44 women (average age 47 years old).  They were looking at two characteristics of the fat from both the omental (visceral) and subcutaneous fat:

  1. Larger fat cells than expected (termed adipocyte hypertrophy).
  2. Smaller fat cells, but more of them (termed adipocyte hyperplasia).

Here’s what they found.  When compared to smaller fat cells (hyperplasia):

  • Women with larger omental fat cells had a worse ability to manage blood sugar (as measured by GLUT4 mRNA expression) as well as more inflammation (as measured by CEBPB mRNA, OM PLIN, CD68, CD14, CD31 and vWF) and were more likely to release fats into the bloodstream (a process called lipolysis).
  • Women with larger subcutaneous fat cells also had a worse ability to manage blood sugar, higher inflammation, lower adiponectin levels (not good–leads to diabetes) and more lipolysis.

While this sounds complicated, the bottom line is that larger fat cells, regardless of location in the body, was far more dangerous than having more, but smaller, fat cells.

This is consistent with what we know about fat cells being the storage for extra calories.  Too many calories, super-sized fat cells and not enough blood flow to support the cells and you get a revolt and uprising.

Cold laser has been known for years to fight this situation by increasing blood flow and decreasing inflammation.  It fits in very well with our experiences with laser lipo for patients who have abdominal fat that has reached this state of inflammation.