Endocrine Abstracts

Owing to the increase in obesity, life expectancy may start to decrease in developed countries for the first time in recent history. In humans the generation of fat cells (adipocytes) is a major factor behind the growth of adipose tissue during childhood. The factors determining the fat mass in adults, however, are not fully understood. Increased fat storage in fully differentiated adipocytes, resulting in enlarged fat cells, is well documented and thought to be the most impor...

Many metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, strongly associate with obesity, making obesity one of the major health challenges facing the world today. Obesity is usually accompanied by an increase in fat cell size. As fat cells enlarge, they begin to secrete factors which promote adipose tissue inflammation and dysfunction. We recently describe a mechanism connecting an increase in fat cell size (hypertrophy) with the secretion of pro-inflammatory factors: We show that...