Even after drastic weight loss, the body’s fat cells carry the ‘memory’ of obesity, research shows — a finding that might help to explain why it can be hard to stay trim after a weight-loss programme.
This memory arises because the experience of obesity leads to changes in the epigenome — a set of chemical tags that can be added to or removed from cells’ DNA and proteins that help to dial gene activity up or down. For fat cells, the shift in gene activity seems to render them incapable of their normal function. This impairment, as well as the changes in gene activity, can linger long after weight has dropped to healthy levels, a study … in Nature reports.
The results suggest that people trying to slim down will often require long-term care to avoid weight regain, says study co-author Laura Hinte, a biologist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. “It means that you need more help, potentially,” she says. “It’s not your fault.”
