Word: kissebah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Kissebah found otherwise. When the women were tested, significant differences between the groups appeared. While women of normal weight and those with lower-body-obesity fell within the normal range on the tests, all of those with upper-body-obesity had high blood levels of insulin, sugar and fats, common indexes of diabetes. Furthermore, when glucose-tolerance tests were given, 15 out of the 25 scored within the diabetic range. Statistically, says Kissebah, the group was eight times as likely as normal women to develop the symptoms of the disease...
Seeking an explanation for these findings, Kissebah examined fat and muscle biopsies taken from the abdomen and thighs of his subjects. He discovered that fat cells taken from the abdomen of upper-body-obese women were enlarged, appearing like so many overstuffed pillows. In lower-body obesity, by contrast, fat cells were normal in size, though excessive in number...
...shown that the overpacked fat cells have a smaller number of the receptors to which insulin attaches, controlling the utilization of sugar. This may account for the elevated levels of blood sugar and insulin. The tendency to acquire oversize fat cells may in turn be regulated by hormones, suggests Kissebah. Women with upper-body obesity, he found, have a higher ratio of male hormones to female hormones than their lower-body-obese counterparts or women of average weight. The very distribution of their adipose tissue-around and above the waist-is more like that of pot-bellied men. Significantly, obese...
Doctors have long known that overweight increases the risk of diabetes. The rule of thumb is that the risk doubles for each additional 20 lbs. of flab. Kissebah hopes his study will refine the rule. About 40% of American women are overweight, he points out, but only a quarter of that group have upper-body obesity. Such women, he suggests, should all be tested for diabetes and strongly urged to reduce. Diabetic tendencies and symptoms can often be effectively controlled or even eliminated by proper diet and weight loss alone...
...fringe benefit of his study, Kissebah may have solved the age-old riddle of why it is so much easier for some women to lose weight above the waist (where fat cells may be enlarged) than to slim down their hips. Says he: "It is much easier to shrink fat cells than to do away with them...