To say that obesity is simply a consequence of how much and what you eat is an understatement, which has also been disproved by a number of studies in recent years.
Obesity has a multifactorial origin, which implies not only nutrition and physical activity but also stress, inflammation, hormonal, psychological and immune problems. In this article, we’ll look at what obesity links to the immune system thanks to a new discovery.

OBESITY, THE DISEASE THAT DOES NOT HAVE A DEFINITION

The first problem with the concept of obesity is that, apart from saying that it is a condition characterized by excess body weight, nothing else is said. This is what the World Health Organization explains.
Basically what is now considered a disease is officially defined by a single symptom .
This definition problem reflects the treatment problem.
If I can’t define what a disease is apart from its main symptom, how can I treat people?
Would you ever say that the flu is a disease caused by a high fever? No, if anything you would say that high fever is a symptom and not the only one. In my opinion, the best definition of obesity is given by the Obesity Medicine Association .

“Obesity is a chronic, relapsing and multifactorial neurobehavioral disease , in which an increase in body fat promotes dysfunction of adipose tissue and an abnormal accumulation of fat mass, with negative consequences on metabolic, biomechanical and psychosocial health “.

OBESITY AND WEIGHT STIGMA

If we continue to think about fighting obesity by telling people who suffer from it to eat little, exercise more and make sacrifices, we would have only what has been achieved in half a century of dietary prescriptions: nothing. There are thousands of diets today, and yet obesity is a growing phenomenon. There are more obese people in the world than malnourished.

The consequence is that, instead of considering obesity a multifactorial problem, it is thought that, if diet and exercise are not enough, the fault lies in the behavior of the obese .
He or she is definitely a slacker who likes to gorge himself.

This distortion of thinking fuels the stigma of those with fatter bodies. With the result that this stigma is worsening the quality of life of the obese with effects on their health that are even worse than those of a higher than average BMI.

Today, we have a study that correlates obesity and the immune system. This tells us that more and more studies underline the need for an intervention that is not alone: ​​eat less.

OBESITY AND IMMUNE SYSTEM

A new study by a research team from Fujian Medical University (China) and the University of Illinois Institute of Genomic Biology has shown that in a group of mice, a macrophage known as Brd4 promotes the accumulation of body weight. and insulin resistance.

If a subject, due to an abnormal immune and inflammatory response, produces a higher than normal quantity of this class of macrophages, the response will be an accumulation of triglycerides.
And therefore of body fat or white adipose tissue.
When the researchers lowered the production of this macrophage in the gut of the mice, their metabolism went up despite a high-fat, high-calorie diet.

This means that, if we act on the expression of these macrophages, the subjects return to properly burn the energy taken from food. If this line of research were encouraged and promoted, we would have a better chance of understanding how obesity works and fighting it.