We store energy as fat within our adipocytes, the cells of the adipose tissue which stocks up and destocks it according to our daily activities. Imagine a round cell with a black nucleus and a body just as round but flexible, and able to expand or contract according to your storage needs. The adipose tissue, or rather the adipose organ, compounds billions of those cells that store the energy from fats and carbohydrates.
For a long time, scientists thought these were just fat stores, but Prof. Max Lafontan’s pioneering work has shown that they secrete more than a hundred hormones, some which are severely inflammatory. It is therefore a genuine endocrine organ. And it is the most ‘secretor’ organ in the body.
The adipose tissue should always be studied jointly with muscle tissue as these two ceaselessly ‘talk’, interact, and keep falling out and making up. Muscles indeed also secrete hormones called myokines. The balance of these two tissues opens a whole new research field. All this explains why an organism that keeps filling up its adipose tissue without exercising its muscles is heading for trouble. In short eating and exercising should always be balanced. This recommendation may seem commonplace, but it deserves to be repeated time after time.