Overview

Obesity is the leading cause of diabetes and abnormal blood fats, which predispose people to developing cardiovascular disease. Understanding how fat tissue — also known as adipose tissue — carries out its various functions is essential to develop novel therapies to reduce chronic metabolic illnesses.

The Metabolic Basis of Human Adipose Tissue in Health and Disease Laboratory at Mayo Clinic, led by Michael D. Jensen, M.D., and Kelli A. Lytle, Ph.D., aims to understand the interactions between fat tissue and lean tissues that are important in health and disease. Dr. Jensen is a board-certified specialist in clinical nutrition, and Dr. Lytle is a board-certified registered dietitian.

We focus on how obesity, including where in the body people store fat, affects the risk of developing chronic metabolic conditions related to obesity. We measure the structure and function of adipose tissue to better understand how it regulates the storage and release of fat cells and how these processes affect other tissues. We also study how changes in diet and physical activity impact body fat and how fat cells function.

Recent discoveries

Some of our important findings include:

• When people gain fat primarily in their abdominal areas, their adipose tissue releases fat into the bloodstream in a way that makes them more likely to develop diabetes.
• Adipose tissue in different parts of the body — for example, the abdomen, the upper body outside the abdomen, and the legs — stores and releases fat differently. Scientists should therefore consider adipose in different body parts to be distinct depots.
• People who don't gain weight when they overeat tend to move around more without realizing it, thereby burning off many of the extra calories.
• Adults can make new fat cells when they gain body fat, but these new fat cells are mostly in adipose tissue in the legs.
• Moderate weight loss improves how well adipose tissue regulates the release of fat into the bloodstream, thus lowering the risk of diabetes.
• The markers of adipose tissue inflammation are not related to how well fat cells store and release fat.
• We discovered novel mechanisms by which fat is transferred between fat depots in different parts of the body.

Our studies have already improved patient care by opening the door for healthcare professionals to use body fat distribution to help predict the health outcomes of weight gain.