Discovering that white fat cells are not all the same may help researchers better understand the role of fat cells in disease.
The risks associated with white adipose tissue, or white body fat, depend to some extent on where that fat is. For example, intra-abdominal fat (belly fat) is more likely to lead to diabetes and other metabolic conditions than white fat deposits located just beneath the skin (such as in the hips and thighs).
Now, however — according to a new paper from the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and Boston University, both in Massachusetts — it appears that there is more to it than that: There are at least two distinct classes of subcutaneous white fat cells. “A central question in our research on metabolic disease is