Public Enemy No. 1

Dolors & Sense

by Sanford Rose

KISSIMMEE Florida—(Weekly Hubris)—4/25/11—No, it isn’t Rep. Ryan. He came in second. (Just joshing, Congressman.)

The country’s (any country’s) chief villain is the adipocyte, or fat cell. The fat cell does some good things, but these are overwhelmed by some very bad things.

And, oddly enough, these bad things would not be so bad if the cell simply sat around and soaked up triglycerides, which is what we used to think it did.

The view of the fat cell as simply a storage bin or depot for these triglycerides is, however, obsolete.

Fat cells are incurable chatterboxes, and it is their messages to other parts of the body that really damage.

When we overeat, our white gut fat cells get bigger. Eventually, they get so big that they leak or rupture (which occurs long before they multiply).

Leakage and rupture send a signal that something is awry, and the body’’s immune system—including the parts of it that reside within the fat cell itself—responds by mobilizing macrophages (literally and ironically “big eaters”) and other types of immunologic agents to rectify the problem.

These surround the affected cells and engulf them.

We call that process inflammation.

When inflammation occurs acutely, it is a good thing, since it rids the body of debris caused by occasional trauma and pathogenic infection.

But overeating is such a ubiquitous occurrence that macrophages are being constantly recruited to polish off the bloat.

We call this process chronic inflammation. It is a bad thing.

But it wouldn’t be so bad if it were confined to the gut.

Enter the chatterbox element. The immunologic agents recruited by macrophages include cell signalers dubbed cytokines.

These bits of protein or peptides stick to the fat cells. And by circulating to the liver, pancreas, heart, brain and colon, they broadcast the inflammatory news.

The chronically inflamed gut fat cells in effect transmit inflammation to the entire body, generating insulin resistance, atherosclerosis, colon cancer and dementia.

They are not just cells; they are part of a decentralized corporeal endocrine system, constituting a feedback loop of swelling and diffusion that ends up aggravating the initial swelling.

In an overstressed society, food, mistakenly used as part of a reward, ends up imposing the added stress of worsening health.

Food becomes poison.