The adjective adipose refers to fat.
Adipose is an adjective that is used to describe that which has fat or is derived from it . Fat, on the other hand, is tallow of animal origin or the substance composed of fatty acids.
Adipose tissue , in this sense, is the anatomical tissue made up of cells whose cytoplasm has a high amount of fat. This connective tissue has cells called adipocytes , which owe 95% of their weight to lipid content.
The protection of organs and other structures is one of the functions of adipose tissue, which also generates and accumulates the fats that the body needs and carries out different important tasks for metabolism .
Types of adipose tissue
It is possible to distinguish between brown adipose tissue (which produces heat) and white adipose tissue .
In humans , adipose tissue is located in the breasts, bone marrow, around organs, and under the skin. It should be noted that the tissue has blood vessels.
heat production
Brown adipose tissue is also known as brown or multilocular , and is found in abundance in the stages closest to birth, both before and after birth. It only fulfills the function of producing heat , very necessary in the first moments of our life.
In the case of brown adipose tissue, the accumulation of lipid takes place in the cytoplasm , and takes on an appearance similar to that of a medium-sized drop, which is surrounded by many mitochondria, which is why it appears brown. Unlike what occurs in unilocular tissue , its nucleus has a not very eccentric location.
The process by which brown adipose tissue produces heat is called thermogenesis , and this occurs from lipid metabolism. The protein behind this process is called uncoupling (its technical name is UCP-1), and it is found in the inner membrane of the mitochondria; Its name refers to its ability to uncouple the oxidation of fatty acids, after which the energy produced by the mitochondria can be dissipated.
Obesity is associated with an excessive accumulation of adipose tissue.
White adipose tissue
For its part, white adipose tissue , which is also known as white fat , is made up of large cells, whose diameter can easily exceed 100 micrometers (its unit is µm ). Various studies indicate that in men it can represent 20% of their body weight , while in women, 25%.
This adipose tissue has receptors for noradrenaline, growth hormone, glucocorticoid and insulin. On almost the entire surface of its cytoplasm it is possible to observe a large drop of fat that appears empty in histological preparations, since the fats are extracted in the inclusion process. Outside this droplet, the nucleus and the remaining portion of cytoplasm fit close to the cytoplasmic membrane, in a small space.
The term unilocular , mentioned in a previous paragraph, refers to mature adipocytes, which have only a drop of fat, and that is why the prefix uni- is used.
When a person is obese , they have a very high amount of adipose tissue. It is common for overweight subjects to accumulate fat in the abdomen area.
Other uses of the term
The layer of adipose tissue found, in vertebrate animals, just under the skin , is called adipose panicle .
The adipose capsule , on the other hand, is located between the renal capsule and the renal fascia. This lipid accumulation provides protection to the kidney : if a person suffers a blow to this area, the adipose capsule cushions it.