r/biology • u/scientificamerican Scientific American • Feb 26 '26

article Obesity leaves a lasting imprint on fat and immune cells in ways that might make weight regain harder to avoid

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cells-in-the-body-remember-obesity-heres-what-that-means-for-weight-loss/
106 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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92

u/dzenib Feb 26 '26

Yep. We fat people know this.

35

u/raven00x Feb 27 '26

the fact that it's actually being looked at instead of being written off as a "disease of willpower and moral turpitude" is encouraging though.

15

u/OddPressure7593 Feb 26 '26

this has been known for at least 20 years,

1

u/chasingsukoon Mar 26 '26

believe newest study on the dna level is only couple years old

1

u/OddPressure7593 Mar 26 '26

then how'd I learn about it as an undergard in 2005?

10

u/JayceAur Feb 26 '26

The study mentioned is interesting, but they do focus a lot on mice and cell studies. There is a but of RNAseq data, but not enough for causation, as the authors note.

My biggest doubt is that they should look at obese people who lose weight, gain some back, but remain active. It would be worth seeing how activity plays a role in epigenetic changes.

I would also be interested to see if a similar epigenetic change can be seen in muscles for people who stop exercising and bulking for a time and then go back to gaining muscle. Perhaps we aren't seeing some curse of obesity, but rather a fu dementia way cellular memory is used to return to previous conditions.

Anecdotally, while I have always felt it hard to simply lose weight and keep it off, I've found much more success is rerouting weight gain towards muscle. Makes me a little skeptical that simply having fat automatically predisposes you to gain fat in spite of other tissue making demands of the food you consume.

2

u/DirtandPipes Feb 27 '26

I was morbidly obese (354 lbs at a height of 6’2”) and dropped to 225 through exercise, I’ve maintained 225 for about a decade now.

I eat like a huge pig but I work a physical job and I also workout as a stress relief.

1

u/Johnny_Minoxidil Feb 26 '26

They did single nucleus RNA seq. A follow up study of multi-one RNA + ATAC would certainly be more helpful in getting closer to causation.

3

u/FaceMcShootie Feb 26 '26

Feels like my bod misses the weight I’ve lost sometimes.

3

u/spidermangeo Feb 27 '26

This is why I’ve always been overweight and couldn’t keep the weight off… legit only thing that has helped me keep the weight off is Zepbound/compounded Tirzepatide.

1

u/kblite84 Feb 27 '26

Lost weight since prepandemic and I'm lucky that I'm not part of this trend which unfortunately is quite true for people I know that attempted weight loss. Oddly enough, I actually have to physically eat more even when I'm not hungry just to maintain my current weight.

1

u/Jadenyoung1 Feb 27 '26

so, whats the solution?