Tantalizing questions about obesity

clipped from www.iht.com Every year, whether you are fat or thin, whether you lose weight or gain, 10 percent of your fat cells die. And every year, those cells that die are replaced with new fat cells, researchers in Sweden reported Sunday. The result is that the total number of fat cells in the body remains the same, year after year throughout adulthood. Losing or gaining weight affects only the amount of fat stored in the cells, not the number of cells. The finding was published online Sunday in the journal Nature. Obesity investigators say the study raises tantalizing questions: What determines how many fat cells are in a person's body? When is that number determined? Is there a way to intervene so people end up with fewer fat cells when they reach adulthood? Could obesity be treated by making fat cells die faster than they are born? "This is a new way of looking at obesity," said Lester Salans, an obesity researcher and emeritus professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.