Hormonal
Obesity induces chronic low-grade metabolic inflammation in adipose tissue, primarily through macrophage infiltration and the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines like TNF-alpha and IL-6, which directly causes insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction.
Understanding that obesity creates a biological state of chronic inflammation helps explain why weight loss is difficult and why metabolic health declines. This is not a moral failing but a physiological response where fat tissue actively signals the body to store more fat and resist insulin. Treatments targeting this inflammation (like managing cytokine levels) may be necessary alongside lifestyle changes.
Metabolic inflammation has been increasingly recognized as a unifying mechanism linking obesity to a broad spectrum of pathological conditions... Obesity causes a shift of macrophage subtypes in adipose tissue from M2 to M1 activation, leading to increased levels of proinflammatory cytokines and ROS, which induce insulin resistance.
Why this rating
The paper is a comprehensive review citing decades of consistent mechanistic studies in mice and humans.
Source
Adipocytokines in obesity and metabolic disease
Haiming Cao · Journal of Endocrinology · 2014
DOI 10.1530/joe-13-0339
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