My Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week is about fat. It turns out that fat is far more than just a place to store extra calories. Fat has metabolic and physiological effects that can promote disease, including diabetes and heart disease. And that is how your fat can attack you.
But regular exercise can offset or reverse many of the negative effects of excess fat. This is why people who are “fat but fit” may fare better than people who have a normal body weight, but don’t exercise.
If you want to learn more about the role of adipose tissue on health, these are two articles are a good place to start (fair warning–they are high-sci):
George Ntaios, Nikolaos K. Gatselis, Konstantinos Makaritsis, George N. Dalekos. Adipokines as mediators of endothelial function and atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis 2013;227(2): 216-221. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2012.12.029
Coelho M, Oliveira T, Fernandes R. Biochemistry of adipose tissue: an endocrine organ. Arch Med Sci. 2013;9(2):191-200. http://dx.doi.org/10.5114/aoms.2013.33181
Dr Parr Says... 