HOW FAT CELLS WORK

Many of us think that the number of fat cells could not increase after maturity, only their sizes could increase (or decrease).

Ready for some surprises!

Because they can indeed increase both in size (hypertrophy) and in number (hyperplasia) and that they're more likely to increase in number at certain times and under certain circumstances, such as:

• During late childhood and early puberty,
• During pregnancy,
• During adulthood when a person gains lots of weight

You may be genetically predisposed to have more cells that are fat, than others. And women have more of these cells than men. An infant usually has about 5 - 6 billion of them. This number increases during early childhood and puberty and a healthy adult with normal body composition has about 25 to 30 billion of cells that are fat.

An overweight adult typically has around 75 billion of them, but in the case of severe obesity, this number can be as high as 250 to 300 billion! The average size (weight) of an adult fat cell is about 0.6 micrograms (mg),but they can vary in size from 0.2 mg to 0.9 mg. An overweight person's cells which are fat can be up to 3 times larger than a person with ideal body composition.

Remember, body fat is basically just a reserve source of energy and fat cells are like the storage tanks, which can expand or shrink in size depending on how "filled" they are.

Fatty cells start as almost empty fat storage "tanks" (when you are lean) and when your energy intake exceeds your needs, they "fill up" and "stretch out" like balloons filled with jelly.

So when you get leaner, you don't actually "lose" fatty cells, you "shrink" or "empty" them out.