14 DAY TRIAL // Here's a piece of news that some might want to ponder on the next time they feel like badmouthing their love handles or their plumper-than-average thighs: apparently, skin fat helps fight off invading bacteria, and in doing so, it keeps folks safe from infections.
More precisely, a recent paper published in yesterday's issue of the journal Science argues that, according to evidence at hand, fat cells found just under the skin are the first responders when various bacteria try to enter the body through a wound site.
How skin fat keeps us save from infections
Having carried out a series of laboratory experiments, researchers with the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, found that, in mice, skin fat helps keep bacteria at bay until white blood cells produced by the immune system reach a wound site and destroy the threat.
Writing in the journal Science, the specialists detail that, as part of this research project, they exposed several such rodents to a type of bacterium known as Staphylococcus aureus. This bacterium is found on human skin and has come to develop resistance to several antibiotics.
The researchers say that, in the case of the mice that they experimented on, fat cells under the skin produced an antimicrobial compound dubbed cathelicidin and did their best to prevent the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus from entering the body until white blood cells made it to the battle site.
Hence, the mice that packed more healthy fat cells under the skin covering their body developed fewer infections than the rodents that lacked skin fat. Besides, the Staphylococcus aureus infections developed by these animals were found to be less severe.
“It was thought that once the skin barrier was broken, it was entirely the responsibility of circulating white blood cells like neutrophils and macrophages to protect us from getting sepsis. But it takes time to recruit these cells to the wound site.”
“We now show that the fat stem cells are responsible for protecting us. That was totally unexpected. It was not known that adipocytes could produce antimicrobials,” said the study's principal investigator, researcher Richard Gallo, as cited by EurekAlert.
This is yet to be confirmed, but the researchers suspect that human skin fat acts in a similar manner, meaning that it helps buy some time until the body's defense mechanisms figure out that something is off and get to work fighting off a potential threat.
Packing too much skin fat is still bad for people's health
Specialist Richard Gallo and fellow researchers wish to stress that, as encouraging as the news that skin fat appears to help the body handle infections might be, the fact of the matter is that being overweight is and forever will be bad for your average guy's or gal's overall health condition.
Thus, the scientists want people to keep in mind the fact that, as shown by previous investigations, obesity and all the health trouble that go hand in hand with it actually impair the body's natural ability to defend itself against various bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus included.