People who are overweight and wish to lose weight, often do so because they are

Question

People who are overweight and wish to lose weight, often do so because they are concerned about looking too big. Their increased size is attributed to an increased volume of fat.

When people try to lose weight however, they often quantify their goals in terms of weight, not volume.

So my question is, is the volume of an adipocyte cell always directly proportional to the weight of the fat stored within the cell?

If not, what factors would increase/decrease the size of the adipocyte cell for a given mass of stored fat?

Explanation / Answer

For an obese person, subcutaneous and visceral fat is composed of 40% immune cells, while that number is ~10% in lean individuals. There is much interplay between adipocytes and immune cells via adipokines and cytokines. Examples include ADIPOQ (adiponectin) and IL1 (interleukin 1). Thus, agents that reduce the inflammation state of the adipose tissue are also likely to have an effect on adipocyte size. This nonetheless is secondary to diet and diet composition as an adipocyte is nearly all lipid droplet and that lipid droplet stores fat - either from the diet directly or converted into fatty acid from simple carbohydrates in the diet.

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