Your Fat May Help You Heal

Recent research brought the concept of adipocytes as immune cells and these scaffolds may be very important in the study of human pathogenesis diseases and their treatments. Obesity is associated with a chronic inflammatory state and that inflammation can explain obesity related diseases such cardiovascular disease, cancer and infection. Evidences of the relation between the adipocytes or fat cells and immune cells are demonstrated through some clinical syndromes characterized by alterations in biology and morphology of the fat tissue, such as inflammatory bowel diseases and in HIV patients that develop metabolic abnormalities, including dyslipidemia, insulin resistance and fat loss or fat accumulation in the called HIV lipodystrophic syndrome. Understanding the mechanisms of this relation will be of key importance for developing new stategies to combat obesity and related complications.

Fernanda Leite 2:42PM March 30, 2010