Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Getting fat: the type matters

Traditionally, increased fat mass has been viewed as unhealthy irrespective of the distribution of body fat. With increasing research on the subject, most researchers agree that increased visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is the main determinant of the metabolic disorders associated with obesity, compared to increased subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT). 

In the last months, there has been a not-so-scientific debate on whether being fat eating a "healthy" diet is better than being thin eating a Western diet. One can be healthy even with an increased body fat mass? Is gaining fat with a given diet different than with another diet?

A study done by Tran et al. (1) caught my attention and motivated me to dig a little further in this topic. The authors found that transplantation of SAT and VAT to the subcutaneous or visceral regions of recipient mice produced remarkable differences on glucose homeostasis, weight and body fat gain. The scheme utilized for the transplants is shown below:

Copyright © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The most important effect was noticed in SC-VIS mice, which were transplanted with SAT into the visceral cavity. Compared to other mice, the rate of body weight gain (fat was transplanted "on top" of endogenous adipose tissue) was significantly lower, gaining on average only 63% and 59% (they used two cohorts) of the amount gained by sham-mice at the end of the study. This was irrespective of calorie intake, energy expenditure or heat production. Basal plasma glucose levels were reduced by 15% and plasma insulin levels were reduced by 33% in SC-VIS mice. Compared to sham, SC-VIS mice had 70% lower plasma leptin levels, but adiponectin was also decreased. Intraperitoneal glucose tolerance tests showed that SC-VIS mice had the lowest glucose levels, and insulin sensitivity (assessed by hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp) was higher in this group. Glucose uptake in endogenous SAT was increased in both groups of mice transplanted with SAT, reflecting an increase in insulin sensitivity. Finally, gene expression of adiponectin, resistin and leptin levels were decreased in SC-VIS mice, compared to sham. 

Overall, the study findings were:

  • Transplantation of SAT into the visceral cavity produced the most significant results in terms of weight gain, glucose tolerance and adipocytokine levels.
  • SC-VIS mice had decreased body weight, decreased body fat percentage, increased percent of lean mass, without significant changes in total energy expenditure or heat production.
  • Transplantation of SAT into recipient mice improved insulin sensitivity in the liver and in endogenous SAT. 
  • Transplantation of SAT into the visceral cavity decreased average adipocyte area by 38% compared to endogenous SAT, and did not increase the adipocyte's size to that of the endogenous VAT. 
  • Adding SAT to the visceral cavity reduced mRNA levels of resistin, leptin and adiponectin, compared to endogenous SAT.

These results suggest a "protective" role of SAT in obesity. There is evidence that insulin resistance correlates with VAT, regardless of bodyweight (2). VAT appears to produce more IL-6 than SAT (3), which correlates with increased macrophage infiltration in VAT compared to SAT (4). Liposuction, despite reducing bodyfat levels, does not improve metabolic markers in the short and long term (5), does not improve insulin sensitivity of muscle, liver or adipose tissue; and doesn't affect levels of C-reactive protein, IL-6, TNFa and adiponectin in diabetic or normal subjects (6). Accordingly, SAT seems to modulate TNFa expression in VAT (7). 

Thus, it seems that it is not weight lost per se which is important for preventing metabolic damage, but the type of body fat lost. Liposuction achieves equal or greater weight loss than lifestyle modifications, but fails to improve metabolic parameters. 

Effect of different diets on body fat distribution

From the above discussion, it is reasonable to think that the best diet is the one that a. decreases body fat mass and b. reduces and/or redistributes fat mass towards SAT.

Active rats fed a ketogenic diet show increased SAT compared to matched carbohydrate-fed rats (8), despite similar body fat levels, although there are contradictory results (9). Weight loss produced either by a high fat-low carbohydrate diet or a low fat-high carbohydrate diet show the same effects on both SAT and VAT (10), suggesting that the macronutrient ratio is not important. This contrasts with a small study which showed that the visceral to subcutaneous fat ratio (V/S) decreased only in the low carbohydrate group (11), compared with the group eating a high carbohydrate diet, even when both diets were hypocaloric. Other authors suggest that ketogenic diets decrease VAT more significantly than high carbohydrate diets (12), although the method used to estimate VAT levels (DEXA) has some predictive problems (13). 

Chaston and Dixon (14) have proposed that acute caloric restriction produces a preferential loss of VAT in the short term and that this effect is seen with modest weight loss. Alternate day fasting (ADF) has also shown to improve body fat distribution in mice, increasing the proportion of SAT vs. VAT and levels of adiponectin, and reducing the levels of leptin and resistin (1516). These effects seem to be independent of the diet and body fat loss.

Summing up

Independent of total body fat, there seems to be a protective effect of SAT vs. VAT. This might be the reason why not all obese people develop metabolic syndrome or insulin resistance (17), as healthy obese subjects seem to have less risk for complications than normal-weight subjects with metabolic syndrome (18). Calorie restriction seems to be the most important factor for preventing an increase in VAT, while ADF might provide an additional benefit without weight loss. From the above, we can try to answer the questions proposed: 

One can be healthy even with an increased body fat mass? 

Yes, given a proper body fat distribution (higher proportion of SAT vs. VAT).

Is gaining fat with a given diet different than with another diet?

Possibly. Overfeeding studies done do not control for macronutrient composition, so there is no evidence of a different effect of different diets. However, from the studies available, gaining body fat while implementing ADF might be different than with a Western diet. Moreover, specific nutrients might have different effects regardless of body fat gain, such as fructose (19), although recent evidence do not show adverse effects of overfeeding fructose on visceral fat (20). In either case, having a normal-weight is not protective for cardiometabolic abnormalities (21). This suggests that dietary habits are important even in the absence of weight gain (normal-weight obesity), and that gaining weight with a healthy diet might not be as detrimental as gaining weight with a Western diet.

ResearchBlogging.orgTran TT, Yamamoto Y, Gesta S, & Kahn CR (2008). Beneficial effects of subcutaneous fat transplantation on metabolism. Cell metabolism, 7 (5), 410-20 PMID: 18460332

8 comments:

  1. What ive noticed from real life experience in humans is, VAT is shockingly easy to lose, a strict ketogenic diet rapidly depletes VAT

    SAT on the other hand is quite difficult to lose, and there does seem to be a significant amount of calorie restriction involved in getting rid of SAT.

    Further, SAT can come back extremely fast after weight loss.

    Whether or not SAT is healthy or not I think is partially irrelevant because SAT is very sexually unattractive ( males especially ), it also makes finding and fitting clothes more difficult.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Kindke,

    Maybe the reason for the body trying to hold on to SAT is because of its metabolic effects. Perhaps it is not healthy to try to get rid of most SAT, say being below 10% of body fat. The cultural aspect of being "lean" is very important: it is probable that being very low in bodyfat (attractive per occidental standards) is not as healthy as carrying more bodyfat.

    ReplyDelete
  3. also interesting that the super centenarians all seem to have SAT but little VAT and very low levels of cytokines and low HS CRP. I think SAT sticks around because of defective leptin driven adipocyte apoptosis.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've noticed that in members of my tall, very lean family members, as they get into 60s+, even they get a bit of extra SAT around the belly. My 6'3" dad was always skinny, but by his mid-70s he complained of needing to get new trousers after wearing the same size 30 inch waist all his adult life. I figure it must be protective in some way, related to survival, maybe like for females who needed the extra for child bearing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I read a blog from the old web site and I would have just e-mailed this but my laptop is not setup for it and I only have webmail, ie.. click the button doesn't give your e-mail address just and error notice. I Started a low carb diet on 9-27-11 and as of mid January, I had lost 50lbs. My doctor recomended probiotic to help with consipation. After 3 weeks on the probiotic I hadn't lost a single pound (it did help the consitpation.) I took a closer look at the ingredients and it has 200mcg of insulin. I found out on 2-8-12 that I'm pregnant with my 5th child. I've stopped the probiotics and am back in ketosis, I plan to stay on the low carb diet during the whole pregnacy.I am currently about 90lbs overweight. I've been researching ketosis during pregnacy since I do not want to harm my child. I'm not sure if it is wishfull thinking or selective reading but, I haven't found anything negetive about it since I'm not starving. I consider myself a intellegent person but, I did have trouble understanding all of your blog about "ketones fuel fetal development" although I did get the jist of it. If there is anybody you know that would be interested in my data during my pregnacy, I would be fine with it. Anybody that could use the the date to help overweight people decide what to do during pregancy can email me @ lanunno@yahoo.com just put KETOSIS in the subject so I don't junk it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. some evidence that low carb in early pregnancy reduces insulin sensitivity in the child through epigenetic process. So thin mum = fat kid. May be worth delaying keto till later in pregnancy or afterwards.

    ReplyDelete
  7. acheter vente maillot nba pas acheter vente maillot nba pas cher cher Such bones humble and flatter not just the security they have, many people are present, because acheter vente maillot nba pas cher one acheter vente maillot nba pas cher kind of fear and a desire, or almost impossible for the kind of opportunity. cheap to pay the acheter vente maillot nba pas cher fare, because the http://www.nailartmetisse.fr poor sale after watching the film it is no extra money, of course, left the next bucks in his pocket, pulled out to not only make the .

    ReplyDelete
  8. The Fat Burning Kitchen eBook is a nutrition manual written by Mike Geary (the author of the Truth About Abs program) and Catherine Ebeling, a nutrition expert.

    ReplyDelete