Research

Hormonal

Adipose tissue expression of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) increases with obesity and decreases significantly with weight loss, correlating inversely with lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity.

Weight loss reduces the production of TNF, a hormone-like substance in fat tissue that promotes fat storage by inhibiting LPL. This suggests that as you lose weight, your body's biological resistance to storing fat decreases, potentially making further weight loss easier, although other factors also regulate fat storage.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
TNF mRNA levels were examined in the adipose tissue of 39 nondiabetic subjects... There was a significant increase in adipose TNF mRNA levels with increasing adiposity... In 11 obese subjects who lost between 14 and 66 kg... TNF mRNA levels decreased to 58% of initial levels after weight loss... there was a significant inverse relationship between TNF expression and LPL activity
Philip A. Kern et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1995

Why this rating

Human study with controlled diet, biopsy confirmation of mRNA and protein, and statistical significance, though limited sample size for the weight loss subgroup (n=11).

Source

The expression of tumor necrosis factor in human adipose tissue. Regulation by obesity, weight loss, and relationship to lipoprotein lipase.

Philip A. Kern et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1995

DOI 10.1172/jci117899

cohort · n=39Cited 1,307×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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