Research

Hormonal

Adipose tissue insulin sensitivity is inversely correlated with adipose cell size; larger cells exhibit diminished insulin responsiveness, which is reversible through weight loss and cell size reduction.

If you are obese, your fat cells may be less sensitive to insulin, requiring higher insulin levels to manage blood sugar. This is not a permanent defect; losing weight and reducing fat cell size can restore normal insulin sensitivity, effectively reversing this specific metabolic hurdle.

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The larger its adipose cells the less insulin sensitive was the tissue. Thus, adipose tissue with enlarged cells, showed a diminished response to insulin. After weight loss and reduction in adipose cell size, insulin sensitivity of the adipose tissue of obese patients was restored to normal.
Lester B. Salans et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1968

Why this rating

Controlled clinical study with in vitro tissue analysis and in vivo plasma measurements, though small sample size (n=5 obese).

Source

The role of adipose cell size and adipose tissue insulin sensitivity in the carbohydrate intolerance of human obesity

Lester B. Salans et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1968

DOI 10.1172/jci105705

clinical_trial · n=24Cited 589×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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