A new Swedish study finds that the causes of obesity in old age are not only related to the quantity and nature of the food we eat, nor the lack of movement, but there is a decisive factor, which opens the way to address the age of obesity in the future.
Statistics in Germany showed that 56.3 percent of women and 74.2 percent of men were overweight at the end of their careers.
Prof. Helmut Hessker, former head of the German Dietetic Association, says the causes of weight gain have long been known. "A lot of people in Germany eat more than the body needs from high-energy foods and don't move enough," the German expert adds, stressing that there is an urgent need to take action to limit this.
Recent research at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has shown that obesity is largely due to decreased fat loss in adipose tissue, which facilitates body weight gain.
The study shows that it is difficult to avoid weight gain in old age even if nothing changes in the actual conditions of their lives, ie, not eating large amounts of food or exercise.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institute monitored the fat cells of 54 women and men for 13 years to find a reduction in fat loss in all subjects. This means that fat cells begin to lose their ability to get rid of fat over time, and thus store them. The study did not focus on the importance of increasing or decreasing the weight of subjects under time.
Some of the people tested faced physical change and adjusted their eating habits to eat foods with fewer calories, while others did not, gaining an average of 20 percent more weight than the first group.
Fat metabolism was studied for 41 women who underwent gastric bypass surgery before participating in the study, to see if women would maintain their lowest weight within four to seven years after surgery. The researchers found that only some of them managed to maintain their weight.
According to Peter Arnes, professor of medicine at the Karolinska Institute and lead author of the study, these women have been able to maintain their weight because their fat loss rate has greater potential for increase and therefore can continue to evolve over time. Women who have suffered from the beginning have a greater loss of fat and therefore cannot increase it, which is reflected in their eventual weight gain.
According to the study, published in the journal Nature, the researchers were able to show that weight gain in aging does not depend on known factors such as poor eating habits or lack of movement and lack of exercise. "The results show that the processes in our adipose tissue regulate changes in our body weight during aging in isolation," said Professor Arnis, adding that these findings could open the door to completely new ways of treating obesity.
However, regardless of the results of this study, physical activity and exercise remain of great importance in the maintenance of body health, it has been shown that exercises help to increase the frequency of fat metabolism stored in adipose tissue.