Why obese may struggle to lose weight if they diet

SCIENTISTS have discovered why people who are obese may struggle to lose weight no matter how much they diet.

The problem is thought to arise when fat cells become distressed, scarred or inflamed, leaving them unable to soak up calories properly and harder to shed.

Researchers at Exeter University say they have made a breakthrough which could lead to a future treatment after they identified what causes this. Dr Katarina Kos, from the University of Exeter, said: ‘We know that obese people can suffer scarring of their fat tissue which may make it harder to lose weight.’

Dr Kos, who specialises in obesity-related disorders, studied the abdominal fat tissue of obese people which had become fibrous or ‘scarred’ in order to identify what regulates this and to discover a way to reverse it. The research, published in the journal Metabolism, found a molecule called Lysyl oxidase which was more prevalent in people who were obese with scarred fat.

An analysis of the scarred tissue found that fat can no longer cope as it increases in size, essentially becoming suffocated by its own expansion. If fat tissue becomes damaged in this way, it causes calories to be diverted to other fat surrounding organs and arteries, increasing the risk of health problems such as cardiovascular disease.

‘Our research was aimed at seeing what drives this, and now we know, there may be the potential for a drug to be developed to block this from happening,’ Dr Kos said.