Over 35 percent of American adults and 17 percent of American children are considered obese, according to the latest survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Associated with diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and even certain types of cancer, obesity places a major burden on the health care system and economy. It’s usually treated through a combination of diet, nutrition, exercise, and other techniques.
To understand how obesity develops researchers at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, analyzed the accumulation of fat in the body at the cellular level. According to their findings, nutrition is not the only factor driving obesity. The mechanics of “cellular expansion” plays a primary role in fat production, they discovered. By exposing the mechanics of fat production at a cellular level, the researchers offer insight into the development of obesity.
They found that fat cells exposed to sustained, chronic pressure — such as what happens to the buttocks when you’re sitting down — experienced accelerated growth of lipid droplets, which are molecules that carry fats.Contrary to muscle and bone tissue, which get mechanically weaker with disuse, fat depots in fat cells expanded when they experienced sustained loading by as much as 50%.
The researchers discovered that, once it accumulated lipid droplets, the structure of a cell and its mechanics changed dramatically. They were able to observe the material composition of the transforming fat cell, which became stiffer as it expanded. This stiffness alters the environment of surrounding cells by physically deforming them, pushing them to change their own shape and composition.
“When they gain mass and change their composition, expanding cells deform neighboring cells, forcing them to differentiate and expand,” said the researcher. “This proves that you’re not just what you eat. You’re also what you feel — and what you’re feeling is the pressure of increased weight and the sustained loading in the tissues of the buttocks of the couch potato.
If you can learn to control the mechanical environment of cells, you can then determine how to modulate the fat cells to produce less fat.
-Biophysical Journal
Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec comments on “Making Fat While You Sit”
You have heard the phrase “if you do not move it you lose it” well with fat it is “if you do not move it you grow it”.
It is amazing how God created our body. The whole physiology is based on movement. When you stop moving you not only get fat but you get inflamed, toxic, low oxygen and get disease and die earlier. Do you think Adam and Eve were sitting much in the Garden? Of course not they were tending it. A very wise instructor I had while in college said these words and I will never forget them because he said them with such intensity, like he really had experienced the fullness of what these words mean:
“LIFE IS MOTION”.
A person who is confined to complete bed rest for two weeks will have the same bone and muscle loss as someone who has aged ten years. How can this be avoided? By just getting up and standing. You do not even have to do any intense exercise, just letting gravity pull on those muscles and bones will prevent degeneration.
This study is just another reason to keep exercising and do not stay sitting for very long. The more you sit, the more fat you accumulate on your posterior end and not because of lack of exercise but because of the pressure of sitting.
Some may ask “what if my job is sitting at a computer for 8 hours a day?” Then all you have to do is stretch regularly while sitting and get up every couple of hours and walk to the bathroom even if you do not have to use it. Even better is to go up and down the stairs for a few minutes every 2-3 hours. Every hour would be best but your employer might not be so thrilled with your new exercise regime.
We cover these concepts in the following teaching:
The Seven Basic Steps to Total Health
Since life is motion, keep on moving, walking, strengthing and growing in body, mind and spirit.
To Your Total Health Always,
Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec
