Circulatory Health and Baby Fat Cells

The cells that line the inside of your circulatory system are called endothelial cells. They act as regulators for many important functions, including blood pressure. A groundbreaking study has now assigned them a new and vital role: controlling the evolution of baby fat cells into mature fat cells (ones that are capable of storing fat). The last thing people who are trying to lose weight want is a bunch of new fat cells ready and eager to store calories and expand their waistline. As I explained yesterday, one way to cause this problem is eating too much. However, the new research indicates that problems with endothelial cells¹ may trigger baby fat cells to grow up too fast, regardless of diet, which opens up a whole new angle on the weight loss issue.

Let's take a closer look at this issue. Endothelial cells are the Achilles' heel of your circulatory system. They form a lining that is only one cell thick, yet vital to your health. If this lining is compromised by stress, pollution, toxins, or infection then cholesterol readily forms plaque. Endothelial cells are greatly assisted by the fish oil DHA, the tocotrienol form of vitamin E, and many other antioxidant nutrients. Keeping them in good shape is vital to your cardiovascular health.

Your white adipose tissue has circulation entering into it. We are just learning that the endothelial cells within white adipose tissue circulation are neighbors to baby fat cells. In fact, the endothelial cells play a large role in telling the baby fat cells what to do. This means that when too many calories are being consumed it is likely that it is the endothelial cells telling the baby fat cells to mature that helps sets weight gain into motion. This is all normal function in terms of how your body defends itself when you eat too much.

The new discovery of significance is that when endothelial cells are in healthy condition they keep baby fat cells under much tighter control. As they become unhealthy or stressed, baby fat cells lose their parental supervision and begin to run wild, leading to obesity. This is quite interesting because we usually think that obesity is causing heart disease. This information says this may be more of a chicken and egg issue, wherein circulatory problems lead to obesity and the two problems play off each other making overall matters progressively worse in a number of ways.

It means that those with resistant weight issues, even when following the Leptin Diet, may need to work aggressively to reduce inflammation in the circulatory system in order to restore endothelial health and bring this issue under control. Thankfully, many nutrients assist this issue. This also helps explain why many nutrients that are great for cardiovascular health are also great for weight management.

As a final point of interest, new endothelial cells that replace ones that are too damaged to be repaired actually come from your bones. This links bone health to both cardiovascular health and weight management in a primary way. It is another reason to not only take good care of your bones but also to never take bone drugs, which actually interfere with the healthy metabolism of bones and thus the new production of needed endothelial cells. Another body of emerging science shows the clear importance of bone health to weight management.

The take-home message is that the many systems in your body must work together in harmony for health to result. Bone health, cardiovascular health, and weight management are all linked together. Improving any one of them is likely to help the other – and that is the good news.