Why liposuction sucks

Maybe you did get fatter, but there are worse fates than being a little chubby.  Liposuction, for instance.

I readily admit that I don’t speak from experience this time. On the other hand, I have news for the average person. So please spare a little time if the topic interests you or anyone you hold dear. Or even an enemy, I guess, though I am not responsible for what you might do then. I desperately seek to not be an enemy and, if feasible, not have enemies.

If one has enemies, though, liposuction might be something one would wish for them.

This is not obvious. Body fat is bad, right? So having less of it should be good! Alas, it is not quite that simple.

Fat has a natural place in our body. Every cell in the body has some lipids (fat) in it, and it makes up a rather large part of the brain.  (The brain grows slowly though, so there is no need to fatten your kids excessively. Just don’t give let them grow very skinny.)

Besides being a building block, however, fat is also (and mostly) a fuel. The body burns it to get energy. But you already knew that.  This is the obvious reason why our body has “adipose tissue”, large collections of fat cells, storing lots of fat for the dry season that never comes these days. Until recently, this was the only way this tissue was viewed. It turns out there is another aspect as well.

Fat that is locked inside the fat cells is mostly harmless. Fat that floats freely in the bloodstream, however, is not. It causes inflammation. OK, that may be a slight exaggeration. What it does is increase the tendency toward inflammation. A small infection or just chafing can develop into a pretty big inflammation if there is lots of fat in the blood, but barely register if not. I am not sure whether there is yet a logical explanation for this, it is a fairly new discovery. I think I first read it last year.

When you eat more fat than you can burn off, the fat cells will quietly snatch fat molecules from the blood and store them away. In this way, they keep the blood fat down. In fact, the more efficient they are, the less fat in your blood, and the less infections of anything from gums to arteries, if all other things are equal. So a person who puts on weight easily can be very healthy. In fact, this is common. During the years of ballooning, you have few health problems.  But then…

When the fat cells reach their capacity, which varies with families and even individuals, bad thing begin to happen. Suddenly you become more prone to a lot of illnesses, from hangnails to diabetes. It seems that even cancer is more likely, although I am not sure how.

Some people don’t have a lot of fat cells and they reach their maximum while still looking thin. This is not a good thing: Even though they don’t look fat, in a sense they are, and they suffer fat poisoning. Another person with more fat cells could have continued to absorb fat from the blood for a long time and remain healthy.

Now you see why liposuction sucks:  You are left with fewer fat cells, and have less ability to absorb new incoming fat.  And most people who have had a liposuction regain the fat within a year or two!

If you have had liposuction and you change your lifestyle, exercising more than you eat, you actually have a kind of benefit from the surgery.  Since you are less heavy, you will be able to exercise more easily, with less pressure on your knees; these are hard pressed during many kinds of exercise, and more so the heavier you are. Exercise also feels more comfortable when you are not so big and heavy.

But if you don’t change your ways to a low-fat diet or plenty of exercise, you are left with more fat in your blood, and it will poison you in subtle ways, making you more prone to a wide range of diseases.  And most obvious, diseases of the circulatory system. So take care. Don’t let vanity be your doom.

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PS: One related but slightly different explanation of the mechanism may be more exact: When fat cells overfill and are about to burst, they release distress molecules of the “dying cell, cleanup crew required” type. This excites immune cells, who may then attack the wrong target.

Science is just now catching up to the fact that fat is more than just a “dead weight”, so there will likely be more exciting discoveries in the near future. May we all be there!

PPS: Read more at ScienceDaily. Also with nifty links.