A new study which has shed new light on the immediate uptake of meal fat by fat tissue within hours of eating, and also on the process of fat storage in obese people, has sparked much interest in the national press.
One of the scientists involved, however, was frustrated by reporting of the study in the national media. Fredrik Karpe, a researcher at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine and Professor of Metabolic Medicine, told Cherwell, “This news item has literally exploded and unfortunately the journalists are consistently focusing on the wrong aspects.”
He claims that the results about fat storage which have sparked such media interest are not novel at all and have in fact been known for more than 40 years and added, “The interesting part which journalists would not want to focus on is the effect of obesity.
‘In this instance, our study showed that the fat tissue was actually quite inactive and didn’t take up the meal fat very effectively at all. Instead the fat went elsewhere, in particular to tissues that aren’t very good for fat storage and therefore potentially caused harm.”
Karpe explained that the absence of this immediate meal uptake by fat tissue could result in liver fat accumulation, which can lead to liver failure.
Alice Caulfied, a medical student at St Anne’s, commented, “If the media chooses to neglect important aspects of the study, such as the problem of inactive fat tissue during obesity, the problem will only worsen. Once a level of obesity has been reached no more fat can be deposited externally and will therefore instead accumulate internally, for example on the organs.
‘If people remain unaware of this they will continue to consume excessively and not appear to be putting on any more weight, while in reality they are on the inside – leading to problems such as cirrhosis and heart fat deposition.”
Adam Mackinnon, a first year biologist, said, “It is understandable that the media would skip over the scientific details in favour of a more dramatic headline which grabs their reader’s attention. At the end of the day, people are more interested in obesity than in metabolic processes.”
