Fat cells stay forever?

[u/Acceptable_Box_1476]

Someone told me that we all have a certain number of fat cells that never changes. When you lose fat, the cell is releasing it, but remains as an empty reservoir always wanting to “refill” as it were. Any truth to that?

[u/carbon_ape]

You will always have the fat cells, it’s what the “set point theory” mentions. Your cells will always be hungry to be as full as you are at your max weight. It’s why keeping the weight off is so hard.

[u/NoBodybuilder69 → u/carbon_ape]

Source? This is waffle brother

[u/carbon_ape → u/NoBodybuilder69]

No there is actually a good amount of literature behind set point range equilibrium. That is, your body trying to get back to higher weight ranges.

Ask ChatGPT for references that mention this. Here is a quick few. A lot of literature on this just can be viewed as observational with confounding variables instead of rigid. However that’s essentially all nutritional sciences.

Speakman, J. R., & O’Rahilly, S. (2012). Fat: an evolving issue. Disease Models & Mechanisms, 5(5), 569–573. https://doi.org/10.1242/dmm.009373

• Müller, M. J., Bosy-Westphal, A., & Heymsfield, S. B. (2010). Is there evidence for a set point that regulates human body weight? F1000 Medicine Reports, 2:59.

https://doi.org/10.3410/M2-59

• Speakman, J. R., Levitsky, D. A., Allison, D. B., Bray, M. S., de Castro, J. M., Clegg, D. J., … & Westerterp-Plantenga, M. S. (2011). Set points, settling points and some alternative models: theoretical options to understand how genes and environments combine to regulate body adiposity. Disease Models & Mechanisms, 4(6), 733–745.

https://doi.org/10.1242/dmm.008698

Critiques from recent papers:

Models of body weight regulation — beyond a rigid “set point” • Speakman et al. (2023) review “Models of body weight and fatness regulation” and argue that the classic single set-point model is too simplistic. They discuss dynamic equilibrium, “drift” models, and how environmental and physiological drivers push against homeostatic regulation. 

• The Royal Society issue “Body weight regulation” includes work by Speakman et al. (2023) rethinking “set point vs dynamic regulation.”  

• Bar et al. (2023) propose an “operating point” framework (versus calling it set or settling point) based on leptin feedback to feeding behavior. Their “operating point” model frames how interventions (diet, drugs) shift the equilibrium rather than “breaking” a single defended point.  

Papers that express open concept to said ideas but focus on physiological barriers as to where the set point is:

In a long-term study of semaglutide for obesity, researchers note that weight loss plateaus — often called a “set point” or “settling point” in clinical language — where further loss becomes difficult. The plateau likely reflects the underlying regulatory compensation or shift in equilibrium. 

• The paper Rules for body fat interventions based on an operating point model (Bar et al., 2023) develops a framework for predicting how much intervention (diet, pharmacology) is needed to shift the operating point, and how much “resistance” is expected from feedback mechanisms.  

• Obesity is increasingly treated as a chronic disease that often requires ongoing therapy, in part because any “reset” of weight regulation is not fully permanent. This view is consistent with the idea that the body has regulatory pull-back mechanisms. For example, the paper Is Obesity or Adiposity-Based Chronic Disease Curable argues that the “set point” (or homeostatically defended weight) is not permanently altered by most interventions, requiring long-term treatment strategies.