Cell: Fish oil promotes health by increasing fat cells?

Photo: Pixabaya recent paper published in the leading academic journal Cell shows the impact of the star in nutrition on fat stem cellsResearchers at Stanford Universityfound that DHA (22 carbon hexaenoic acid), an important member of the omega-3 fatty acid family, controls the production of more fat cells from stem cells in adipose tissue, helping us understand at a microscopic perspective why omega-3 fatty acids are "good" fatsthe discovery is linked to a rare genetic diseaseSymptoms include feeling hungry, not stopping to eat, and then becoming obese and developing insulin resistanceThe reason for this is that a genetic mutation in a patient can cause problems with a protrusion structure in a small number of cellsfat precursor cells are one of the few affected cellsFat precursor cells are a class of polypotent stem cells in adipose tissue, and proliferation and differentiation can produce mature fat cellsScientists found in fat precursor cells in humans and mice that most of them had a protrusion structure called primary cilia before differentiationwhen it comes to cilia, we tend to think first of more primitive organisms such as bacteriaThis cell appendage is indeed an ancient structure that dates back about a billion years to the whiplash used by algae cells in the ocean to move and perceive their surroundingsDuring the long evolutionary process, most cells of multicellular organisms abandoned whiplashHowever, some cells retain the primary cilia as a highly sensitive "antenna" that receives faint signals from the outside world of the cell, helping to regulate the cell's function and destinycilia is an evolutionaryly conservative cell protrusion that affects multiple organ tissues caused by genetic mutations and is collectively known as cilia disease (Photo: Source: Supplied)Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, DrPeter Jackson, and colleagues have found that for fat precursor cells, primary cilia may have an effect on cell differentiation when it perceives a specific signallooking for signaling molecules, they identified DHA, an important ingredient in fish oil, that binds to a receptor on the surface of the primary cilia, causing precursor cells to divide and provide the body with more fat cells, as the arrow suggests, most of the precursor cells in white adipose tissue in mice have primary cilia structure (Photo: Source: Supplied)some readers' friends may be a little worried about making fat cells more, not fat? Not really"Compared to a smaller but large fat cell, a larger number of fat cells is what you needProfessor Jackson explainedthis is because if the number of mature fat cells is small, they can only swell in order to store fat, and the cracking fat cells and spilled fat will cause inflammation, fibrosis and other problems, promote metabolic diseaseConversely, if more new fat cells are produced, they can effectively ban fatthe study (Photo: Source: Supplied source, 1)researchers also found that, contrary to the effects of omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids, the presence of saturated fat does not allow fat precursor cells to produce new cells, but rather to increase fat reserves in existing cellsAs a result, "we've proven from a molecular-to-receptor perspective why 'healthy fats' are beneficial and 'unhealthy fats' are easy to cause." DrKeren Hilgendorf, the study's lead author, saidReference sHilgendorf, KI., et al., (2019)Omega-3 Fatty Acids Activate Ciliary FFAR4 to Control AdipogenesisCell https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2019.11.005 2' Omega-3 fatty acids' health linked to stem cell control http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2019/11/omega-3-fatty-acids-health-benefit-linked-to-stem-cell-control.html N Engl J Med DOI: 10.1056/NEJMra1010172.