Obesity Makes Fat Cells Act Like They’re Infected, Methodist Diabetes & Metabolism Instittute Study

The inflammation of fat tissue is part of a spiraling series of events that leads to the development of type 2 diabetes in some obese people. But researchers have not understood what triggers the inflammation, or why. In Cell Metabolism this month (cover), scientists from The Methodist Hospital report fat cells themselves are at least partly to blame -- high calorie diets cause the cells to make major histocompatibility complex II, a group of proteins usually expressed to help the immune system fight off viruses and bacteria. In overweight mice and humans the fat cells, or adipocytes, are issuing false distress signals -- they are not under attack by pathogens. But this still sends local immune cells into a tizzy, and that causes inflammation.

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